Chuck Versus the Lost Years
by Angus MacNab
Summary: What happened after the Goodbye? Chuck and Sarah find that getting Sarah's memories back might be much more difficult and dangerous than just remembering them. A whole new adventure and romance revolving around an Intersect run amok.
1. Prologue

**A/N **I originally started this story as a two hour teleplay set immediately after Chuck vs the Goodbye. It subsequently became more of a novelization and I currently have the prologue complete and here for your consideration (the prologue was not beta read) ) and four 'acts' 'in the can' and ready for editing. You will see a number of hat-tips in this story both to the original writers and to a few writers here on Fan-Fic that I admire and whose work I enjoy reading. Those of you who are observant will also see some hat-tips to a computer game or two and some pop-culture references posited in the narrative similarly to the way Chuck Bartowski occasionally does it in dialogue. I've tried my best to keep the characters true to canon and have used many events from the series as the underpinnings for the story and as a vehicle to explore just what Sarah Walker-Bartowski lost in those last three episodes of the series and what can and has to be done to get those lost years back and get her and Chuck back together in a fun and hopefully original story.

You can count me as one of the fans of Chuck who didn't care for the way they ended the series mostly because of the way that Sarah's character development of five years was so completely savaged in just three short episodes using a plot vehicle that has been so overused in television and film (and just about anywhere else you care to mention in fiction, too.) But, admittedly, the producers of Chuck gave us an ending that left the door wide open for so many interpretations of what could have come after. So, here's my version of it.

Not being the litigious type myself I really hate to have to use this unfortunate but necessary disclaimer: **I don't own Chuck...Shucks...  
**

...but if someone wants to talk me about a TV movie, I'm all ears...and full of opinion. I am a **BIG **fan of Chuck.

Thanks for reading,

Mac

Now (hopefully) for your reading pleasure...

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Prologue**

They kissed. Chucks hand slowly came up to Sarah's cheek in a gentle caress as he lost himself in it. It was a gentle and tentative kiss. He wanted so much for Morgan to be right about this, that this one kiss could bring all Sarah's lost memories back to her like a Disney story, and he put his heart and soul into this kiss. But he also held back because a part of him was very anxious that if he pulled out all the emotional stops and went too far with it he would upset Sarah and frighten her off. This kiss felt so good though, and he missed her so much he didn't want it to come to an end, so he just continued to let his lips brush tenderly over hers.

What was she feeling here? There was something, but her memories weren't flooding back to her like Sarah, unexpectedly, and frantically realized she hoped they would. She knew this kiss, the feelings that were attached to it and a vague recollection of a past filled with them, but her mind wouldn't allow her to understand why. Without even realizing she was doing it her hand came up to Chucks hand on her cheek and tenderly stroked it with her finger tips – it was like an electric shock that ran from her finger tips, up her arm and into her chest. Sarah's other hand came sliding up Chucks back as she turned to him and it landed in a tight grip on his shoulder. She was shocked again by his touch. And then she was overcome by bewilderment. It was accompanied by a sense of loss and confusion so deep it made her heart ache in a way she hadn't experienced since her father had been dragged away by federal agents all those years ago.

As they finally broke the kiss Chuck saw a look in Sarah's eyes that caused his stomach to flip over in his gut. Her hand slid from his and reached for his arm as a tear rolled down her cheek. She let her head fall forward and it came to rest on his forehead as she clung to him. He could feel her body barely trembling through their embrace. A flood of conflicting emotions overcame Chuck and they sat frozen like that for several minutes. He quietly waited for Sarah and she finally broke the silence as she sat back and let her hands fall leaden back into her lap.

"Chuck, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid Morgan was wrong." She looked wistfully at her hands, "It doesn't look like we're going to get our fairytale kiss that cures all of this."

Sarah let out a sigh that caused Chuck to visibly sag. There was simply no way she could have missed it. It was also so obvious to her now that this man was deeply in love with her, one look into his brown eyes told a story only a fool could ignore. The only question unanswered was how did it happen? Something buried within her that she couldn't grasp was shouting out to her not to hurt him. She felt something special for this man. She very clearly even remembered some things, but the feelings and the memories she had were in terrible roiling conflict with what Sarah Walker, the hardcore CIA agent's thoughts were shouting back at her. Langston Graham's wildcard enforcer would never fall in love with an asset or another agent, would she? But what about Bryce Larkin? She _had _been down this road before. And then she remembered her mission log videos and how she had reacted to Bryce's death at the hands of Ring operatives when Chuck had downloaded the Intersect 2.0. She shuddered. She just didn't know what to do with these conflicting thoughts and emotions. They all just felt so foreign to her, and they were overwhelming her.

She couldn't bring herself to look up at Chuck and continued to stare at her hands in her lap. "I wanted this to work. I wanted Morgan to be right about the kiss. I know that there is something very special between us, Chuck," she sighed again, "but I don't remember much of any of it. And the anger from having five years ripped from my life is eating me up inside. I don't know the Sarah Walker that grew to fall in love with you anymore."

Chuck reached over and cautiously placed his hand on Sarah's. It startled her and she almost jerked her hand away but caught herself and stopped. "Trust me, Sarah, we can get through this. It may take some time, but I'll always be there for you. Always. I'll fight for you every day. If you're willing to trust me I believe we can get most of your memories back, just let me help you. You can count on me, Sarah."

Sarah looked at their hands and then back at him, "Chuck, thank you for telling me our story. I needed to hear it, and I want to get those lost years back, but I want the memories, and I want them to be attached back to the emotions that I'm feeling, not a memory that has been told to me that leaves me hunting for the emotion that's supposedly connected to it, do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

Chuck tightened the grip on Sarah's hand and caught her gaze with an earnest look when she looked up at him. "Yes, I do understand. Let me help you. You can get them back on your own terms, and you're already starting to do that. I won't push them on you if you don't want to hear about them, and we can start over if you're willing to try that too." Sarah looked at him, and it was obvious she was very conflicted.

After a moment passed, "I'll tell you what", Chuck said, "it's been a long tough day, and I don't know about you but I could sure use something to eat. There's a good burger stand on the road off the beach, so why don't we walk over there and get something comforting and just talk for a bit, nothing heavy, just small talk and a meal, no pressure, just comfort food and good company, and…" - he snapped off the thought in an effort to stop the rambling before it got out of control.

Sarah's mouth turned up a bit at the corners and the smile slowly made its way up into her eyes. Usually _she_ had to put a stop to Chucks rambling when he started to get going like that…_where did that come from?_ A foggy but humorous memory stirred within her about how Chuck could still find his appetite even when things were at their worst. She began to stir, and that caused Chuck to get to his feet ahead of her and offer her a hand up. She took his hand as she rose, and they walked off of the beach together.

- II -

When Chuck ordered their burgers and drinks Sarah shot him a slightly startled sideways glance. A little bit taken aback Chuck blurted out, "Hey, I haven't forgotten how you like your cheeseburger…you do still like them with extra pickles don't you?" he sheepishly added.

"Yes", she smiled, "that's the way I like my hamburgers. Thank you. It's just…well…this all so new to me right now. I'm still trying to get used to the idea that you already know me so well." It was a little unsettling.

"That's just the tip of a very, very, large iceberg, Sarah", he said with a grin, and the sudden look on her face made Chuck realize his Titanic had just run into that iceberg. "Sorry!", he quickly added, "I'm still trying to get used to our current situation too, and that was definitely the wrong thing to say!" Sarah just looked inquisitively at Chuck in response.

They collected their food at the window and wordlessly picked the same table to sit at, lost in thought as they sat down opposite each other and both of them automatically and quickly studied their surroundings for any unseen threats, where the windows were, and the entries and exits. They looked at each other with a sudden realization of what each was doing. Without any conscious thought they were working as a team and the tension was suddenly broken. Finally Sarah's expression eased as she examined her hamburger in her hands for a moment and she looked up at him, "It's all right, Chuck, I think both of us know that what we're being forced to do here is not going to be a cake walk, but it's little moments like this that make me realize there is a lot of history between us I don't see."

The meal continued quietly with just a little small talk. The Sarah Walker of five years ago was not much of a talker, and Chuck was guarding his choice of words in a way he'd never found himself doing before. He didn't want to screw this up, and it was really affecting his normal chatterbox mode of conversation. They both rose from the table at the same time and Chuck gathered the cups and wrappers and placed them in the trash receptacle. All this time the two of them were studying one another with quick and furtive glances.

They walked back toward the beach staring at the ground in front of their feet, each lost in their own thoughts for several minutes. As they were crossing a small bridge a short distance from their cars, Chuck looked over the side and nostalgically recalled walking with Sarah, over a similar bridge on their very first 'date' about five years ago, and the conversation they were having at the time. They were discussing music, and he had asked Sarah to name her favorite band. She didn't have one, and he smiled at the memory remembering how odd he thought that was.

Sarah caught that smile of his and looked at him with subtle curiosity written on her face. "What are you thinking about?", she asked.

Chuck looked thoughtfully at her and asked, "Do you remember your favorite song?"

She stopped and studied him intently, and then said, "I've never had much time for what I'd call deep music appreciation, but I do love to dance. I have a favorite song?"

"Yes, yes, you do. It's actually one I picked out for you a few years ago. You said you really liked it, and we have some other nice memories shared along with it too. You don't remember it? "

Sarah's gaze fell again to her feet and she started walking again, "I'm sorry, but as hard as I try, I can't remember it. It seems like such a trivial thing, why does it hurt so much?" A look of complete distress clouded her face as she said it.

Chuck quickly reached over and grabbed her hand and held it tightly. He gave her his best reassuring smile and said, "Don't worry about it. You will remember it when you hear it, I know you will."

Sarah's features relaxed as he said that and she managed to put a small smile back onto her face. They both kept a tight grip on each others hand all the way back to their cars parked by the edge of the sand.

As they reached their cars Sarah turned, grabbed his other hand and locked her eyes on his. Chuck noticed that the look in them was mostly unreadable, but there was pain, and what was it, anger? It was swimming almost imperceptibly in the back of her hauntingly beautiful azure eyes.

"Chuck, I'm going back to my hotel room at the Maison 23. I need some time to think, and I need to do it alone."

Chuck swallowed hard, and tried with all his might not to let any pain show on his face.

Sarah was also struggling for self control and it was not something she was used to. Controlling her emotions was something she took great pride in and had always been in command of, why was it taking leave of her now? "I don't want to hurt you, Chuck…I don't. But I need to try to make some sense of all of these emotions that are trying to boil over and figure out what they mean to the memories I have. I need some time." _I need to be in control._

"Will I see you again? Are you going to stay in town? How will you fill your day?…Wha-"

She gripped his hands harder. "One step at a time, Chuck, one day at a time. The person I know as Sarah is a CIA agent, so I think I'm going to ask General Beckman to forward my request to the Director for reinstatement. For the time being I'll be staying here in Burbank until I know what the Agency has in mind for me. And I want to see you more too, Chuck. Call me in a few days, say Friday, and we'll go from there?"

Chuck's gut rose up into his throat. He just stood there lost in her eyes for what seemed like several minutes, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest and his stomach trying to burn a hole in itself. Friday was four days away, _four days_, and Chuck Bartowski was at a total loss for words…how agonizingly strange that was for him. Finally he allowed his eyes to break away and he turned to his car, "Wait one moment, I have something for you", he said, as he unlocked his car and reached into the front seat for something. He handed her a woman's wallet. In it were Sarah Walker-Bartowski's drivers license, her checkbook, credit cards, gym membership…and some family photos.

Sarah gave him another hard to decipher look and attempted to hand the wallet back. He stopped her and his expression made it clear he wasn't taking no for an answer. "Sarah, you're going to need this, for a while at least, you will have living expenses to pay. And we're still married…and we have shared accounts for everything except a couple of credit cards. What is in those accounts is yours too. Please take it, and try not to read anything into my giving it to you. Don't worry too much about what you spend, just don't go and lose a hundred grand on one spin at the roulette wheel." The comment about the roulette wheel stirred something in Sarah's memory that was amusing, but she wasn't sure why. "I also have your passport at the apartment if you find you need it, although I suspect you have others hidden around too", he added with a tight-lipped grin.

Sarah fixed her eyes on him with a long and seriously appraising look. "Okay, Chuck, have it your way, and…thank you", she smiled at him, "I'll try not to go crazy with it." And then she stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.

"I'll c'ya Chuck." Sarah climbed into her car and closed the door. As she reached for the starter key she heard a tapping on the window and rolled it down.

"Sarah, I'm always here for you. Call me any time day or night if you want to talk about anything. I'll try my best to just listen and keep my babbling to a minimum…unless you decide that that is what you want to hear", he added with a broken and crooked grin.

"I won't forget that, Chuck. Keep your phone charged." And with that Sarah started her car, cast him a brief but reflective look, and drove off. She glanced at the wallet sitting in the passenger seat and then opened the glove box to look at the small zippered pouch that held one of her backup sets of ID's and credit cards. She had started using that set right after she had 'escaped' from Quinn to assassinate Chuck. She thought of the possible consequences of using those backup credit cards and made a decision. _It's time to give Sasha Miller a rest, and become Sarah Bartowski again, at least for a little while._

Chuck Bartowski slowly turned away as he watched Sarah drive off and he placed his arms across the top of his car. He looked out across the sand at the moonlit dappled waves…and he was alone.

- III -

Sarah Walker awoke to her alarm buzzing on the dresser across the room. She wasn't a morning person and it seemed on most mornings she had to drag herself out of bed, so she had long ago placed her alarm clock radio away from the bed to force her up when the alarm told her it was time.

Most mornings lately she'd been waking up with a dull headache like a hangover. Sleep wasn't coming easy these days, and when she did sleep she was having some very vivid dreams, and a few that could only be classified as nightmares. On almost every one of the last several nights she had been jolted from her sleep by a recurring nightmare. She was strapped to a chair and being tortured, and the pain felt very real to her. But she wasn't being beaten, or shocked, or subjected to any of the many other gruesome ways a human being could abuse another. Instead, the pain was being caused by…a mirror? A rectangular hand mirror like the one she had in her bathroom to check her makeup and the hair on the back of her head with the mirror over the vanity. The mirror would reflect a flash at her like a strobe, and her head then felt like it was going to explode. A couple of times she had seen her own agonized reflection in that mirror and had awoken soaked in sweat and shaking uncontrollably.

Then there were the other dreams. Oh, my. They were filled with intense emotion, and Chuck was in most of them, Casey was too. Some of them seemed to be about missions filled with some of the most improbable events, amazing successes, and hair-raising rescues. And always there were these intense emotions attached to them…_to Chuck in them._ Sarah would wake up after one of those dreams wondering if they had any basis in reality because they had such a fantasy like quality about them. In a couple of them Chuck had rescued her from almost certain death as the intensity of the dream forced her frustratingly back awake and left her wondering what would have come next. And there were dreams of snippets of conversations in various places; sitting on the edge of a fountain, in Castle, on the couch in Chuck's apartment, around the table with Chuck's family and friends…_playing board games?_

Then she'd awoken early yesterday morning from one particular dream, bolt upright, her body hot and her face flushed. They had been in a private cabin on a train. Having what seemed like endless, wild, passionate, and very graphic sex, interspersed with meals being brought to them while they rested? Then more and more love making that finally ended so intensely it woke her up and cemented the event in her mind…and body. She had punched her pillow in frustration.

This morning was very much like the others, except this time she had managed to get back to sleep only to be awoken again by her mid-morning alarm. She pushed up her sleeping mask and squinted at the clock in the bright morning light streaming through the window. Once again, overtaken by intense frustration she reached instinctively under her pillow for her favorite fighting knife and it flew across the room in a flash that pinned the clock radio to the wall. But as this happened her world went blinding white and her head exploded with pain; a pain similar to the one she had been experiencing in her nightmares of torture. As she lay there for several minutes trying to recollect herself as the pain passed she slowly became aware the alarm was still buzzing and her hand was still on the handle of the knife under her pillow. What had just happened?

She picked her throbbing head up off the pillow and looked across the room at the clock; it was still there on the dresser, and still buzzing at her. Releasing her grip on the knife she rolled over and forced her feet to the floor. She watched her hand strike the top of the radio hard where the alarm button was and half-staggered off to the shower.

The long hot shower did her some good, Sarah was feeling like a human again as she strode out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her and another wrapped around her head. She walked over to her cell phone on the table by the window to check her messages. There were several calls and messages from Chuck.

Sarah realized as she looked at the phone that she couldn't seem to avoid Chuck in her dreams but she was sure doing a good job of it in her real life. She hadn't spoken to him in over a week since her last, and what now seemed regular, Friday phone call to him. That last Friday call had been fairly uncomfortable because Chuck's cell phone battery was going dead shortly after she'd called him and she'd razzed him about it. He was obviously stressing and didn't take her meager attempt at humor very well. She had ironically found herself offended by his response, even though she understood what he was trying to say. She'd missed her Friday call this week and was trying not to face the reason why. She knew she was building a wall around herself again like she'd done so many times in the past; trying to compartmentalize her life, avoid emotional entanglements, be Sarah Walker the spy. She could feel Chuck on the other side of that wall hammering on it with a jackhammer even as she placed more bricks on her side of it. Not talking to Chuck made it easier to place more bricks in the wall. She was refusing all his calls, but oddly enough, she was listening to most of his voice messages. For some reason she loved the sound of his voice, she was just afraid to have a real conversation with him. _Afraid?_

She looked at her text messages. There was a new one, from General Beckman. It had come in while she was in the shower.

_Report to Castle at 19:30UTC for a video briefing re: reinstatement. – Beckman_

Castle? Why Castle? There were other CIA facilities nearby where they could have done this. Dammit. How was she going to get into Castle without encountering any number of people she'd rather not see right now. As she dressed for the day she started to think about a strategy to accomplish this 'mission' unseen by anyone, especially Chuck. Somehow the way she was avoiding him felt very wrong to her, but her stubbornness wouldn't let her give in to the emotion.

The day following her serendipitous meeting with Chuck at what turned out to be their spot on the beach, Sarah had called General Beckman and requested agency reinstatement. Technically Diane Beckman wasn't her boss anymore and she was NSA, but she had been Sarah's most recent government superior, and the most logical choice to make the request to. Beckman had told her she would pass the request to the CIA, and she then instructed Sarah to stay in Burbank and that they would contact her in a few days to discuss her reinstatement followed by possible assignments. That had been over three weeks ago, and it had been an excruciating wait. Why had they taken so long to get back to her about this? She waited in her room asking herself that question over and over until the appointed hour. The answer was so obvious, but she couldn't see it.

The Orange Orange yogurt shop was obviously the best choice for going in and out of Castle if she wanted to be discreet, but Sarah didn't know who would be working there at the front counter and whether they would notify Chuck that she was there. There was little chance she could walk into the Buy More unseen without a disguise, she would have been spotted by any of the employees almost instantly. She decided to risk the yogurt shop and parked her car well across the lot from it and the Buy More store.

As she walked into the yogurt shop she recognized the employee behind the counter right away and the girl behind the counter recognized her too and greeted her pleasantly, "Hello Mrs. Bartowski, it's so nice to see you. We've missed you around here," and she added with a wink, "Are you finally here to check inventory?"

Oh, damn, what was her name? She'd met her a month before, actually long before that, but her nightmare experience with Nicholas Quinn had erased any previous memory of the young lady standing before her since being 'reintroduced' several weeks ago. _Sondra? Sara? No, it's Suzy. Damn, I'm losing my touch! _

She thought quickly of a ruse, and winked back, "Hello, Suzy, it's good to see you again too. Yes, I'll be in the back of the store for a bit checking inventory, but I also came to steal a pint of strawberry yogurt, can we keep it our secret?"

Suzy gave her a conspiratorial grin, "Of course, it'll be our own little secret."

"Thanks." And Sarah made her way to the backroom and the walk-in freezer.

- IV -

The large monitor in front of her came to life and on it was General Diane Beckman in her Air Force officers uniform. "Hello Sarah, it's good to see you," she said cordially.

Slightly taken aback by the General's congenial tone, Sarah mentally shifted gears, "It's good to see you too General Beckman, how are things in Washington these days?"

"Busy, very busy. There are a great many new things happening here, and not coincidentally your husband has a lot to do with them, but unfortunately I can't discuss many of them with you right now." Diane was looking at Sarah carefully like she was looking for any possible tell she might give. It set Sarah uneasily on her guard.

"I understand general, I was hoping we could put that little problem of my clearances behind us soon. Has there been any word from CIA about my reinstatement?"

"No, no solid word from the Director as yet, but Director Shepard wanted me to tell you that we will be having another video meeting with you, myself, and him early next week. We should have a solid answer for you by then." She continued watching Sarah closely, "How is Chuck?"

She should have expected this, but quickly re-schooled her features, "Chuck is fine, I just spoke with him the other day," she deflected, "He seems to be very busy with work these days."

Beckman's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, "Yes, we _are_ keeping him very busy these days, but not so busy as to totally preclude any kind of personal life."

_What did she mean by that?_ Sarah could feel the red running up her neck and tried to quell it. "General, I won't lie to you, things have been a little rough for Chuck and me, five years of lost memories for me is a significant problem for us to deal with right now."

The General's head tilted to one side and she looked at Sarah out of the corner of her eye as she asked, "Just how are you dealing with your memory loss, Sarah? Has Chuck been helping you cope with it? Are you letting him help you?"

The questions made Sarah squirm in her seat, even someone untrained at reading body language would have seen it. "No, General, I've asked Chuck to refrain from telling me stories about our past. I want to remember these things on my own. It's important to me that I regain those memories on my own, and I'm trying…it's just been…very difficult," she answered truthfully. _Why am I saying these things to Diane Beckman?_

"I see," Diane responded. "You do realize that your memory loss is going to weigh heavily on your reinstatement and what sorts of assignments you'll be given if you are reinstated don't you?"

_**If **__I am reinstated? _"I assure you, General, recovering from my memory loss has been a top priority for me, but I'm also absolutely sure I can still function as a field agent in spite of my loss of recent memories. I still remember my training, and I'm still very good at what I do."

"Very well, I'll concede that point. We'll meet to discuss this matter more next Monday, Sarah." The general paused for a moment as if to carefully consider her words, "Sarah, I'm only going to say this once, but you need to hear it because of what you may or may not remember. The government put a lot of effort into developing you and your partner Chuck as a couple after it was discovered that you had been compromised and how you two felt about each other. You need to consider that and make some effort of your own to correct the situation you're in with Chuck. Whether you want to or not, you shouldn't try to deny where you have been the last five years and not face it head on. The Sarah Wa-…_Bartowski _that I know just wouldn't do that."

Sarah's stared speechless for a moment at Diane Beckman. "General, I'm doing-"

Beckman cut Sarah off with wave of her hand and looked at her evenly, "Consider carefully what I just said, Sarah. You're dismissed." And the screen went blank.

Sarah walked out of the freezer of the Orange Orange in something of a daze. When she stepped through the door from Castle into the freezer she had stood there in the freezer for several minutes trying to collect her thoughts and let the cold air soak into her to help snap her out of it.

As she walked around the corner of the front counter and headed for the door a voice penetrated through her self-imposed haze, "Um, Sarah, aren't you forgetting something?"

She turned to see Suzy standing at the counter with a pint of frozen yogurt in her hand. "Your frozen yogurt?" Suzy continued with a smile.

"Oh, thank you Suzy, I completely forgot," Sarah said, obviously preoccupied as she stepped back to Suzy to take it from her hand. "Thank you."

"Um, Sarah… you O.K.?"

Her glassy eyes met Susie's, "Yes, I'm fine, Suzy, thanks for asking. Have a good afternoon." And she turned and walked out of the shop leaving Suzy with a perplexed look on her face.

- V -

Sarah spent the rest of the day thinking about what General Beckman had told her during their video conference. Diane's words were causing her to pose some interesting questions to herself, questions she had been working very hard at ignoring over the last several weeks.

At some point in the last five years she had allowed herself to be compromised by her asset, Chuck Bartowski, and that relationship had somehow been acknowledged and approved by the Agency, something that was almost unheard of between CIA assets and their handlers. The very idea that it had happened to her made her head spin. But, even with the disclosures at her meeting with Beckman, her dreams, and all the voice messages and texts left on her phone by Chuck, she still couldn't bring herself to pick up the phone and call him. What was she afraid of? _Am I afraid? Since when in my life in the CIA have I ever been afraid of anything?_

She sat in her hotel room staring at the walls pondering her apparent fear of a relationship with one Charles Irving Bartowski and decided to handle it in the way she dealt with a lot of other problems she'd had in the past, by going for a run. She changed into a jog bra top, some workout pants, and running shoes and headed out the door. She ran hard and she ran far, trying to cleanse her mind and her emotions so she could once again think rationally. It seemed to be working.

As Sarah was walking back into the hotel from her run she stopped by the hotel front desk to check on her mail. The desk clerk handed her a single post card. It had a picture of the waterfront of San Tropez on the front and a brief hand written message on the back.

_Having a great time with Gertrude and Carina here in beautiful San Tropez. We all hope you are doing well. _

_When are you going to pull your head out of it and see Chuck?_

_Your friend thru thick or thin, Casey_

Wow. This was about the last thing she would ever have expected from John Casey. She was even having a hard time picturing Casey sitting on a beach relaxing, let alone writing a post card to her…and Gertrude_ and _Carina?_ What was up with that?_ The writing did look like his quick scrawl, though. And how did he know what was going on with her and Chuck when he was off grid in San Tropez? She shook her head ruefully and walked to her room suddenly and keenly aware that she might be under surveillance.

And rationality once again flew out the window.

More dreams. A kiss. Wow, what a kiss. They both thought they were going to die in a bomb blast and she had grabbed Chuck's head in her hands at the last second and kissed him. And he responded, my goodness, did he ever respond, it was incredible…he was incredible. Then they realized that the bomb hadn't gone off, and there was a very uncomfortable moment…for her, not for him. He was very O.K. with it. The intense conflicting emotions drove her from her sleep and she stared at the ceiling for a long time trying to make some sense of it.

She must have been able to get back to sleep. Another dream overtook her. This time a very alarming and emotionally troubling one that took place in Castle. A 49B. She might be reassigned and lose Chuck, maybe forever. Things were definitely not going their way. There were feelings of tremendous loss and a sudden and passionate will to fight for him. The intense emotions once again drove her from her sleep. She was becoming very familiar with every little detail of the plaster ceiling in the darkness over her bed, and now she also understood one of the things Diane Beckman had been trying to tell her.

The rest of her week following her meeting with Beckman had been much like the proceeding ones, much of the time spent either sitting quietly in her room thinking about her dreams and wondering what the previous five years had really been like, and trying to remember them, or letting the pendulum swing the other direction and trying to avoid the thoughts altogether and crowding them out by playing Angry Birds on her iPad, going to the gym, the dojo, and running, lots and lots of running. Then one Friday morning as she was sitting at the table by her window playing Angry Birds while sipping a cup of coffee and nibbling on a croissant, a sudden realization struck her and she set down her iPad and picked up her phone. She scrolled through her messages and her heart inexplicably sank. The calls and messages had stopped coming in days ago and she hadn't even noticed it. _How could I have blinded myself to this? Please don't tell me he has given up! Please, Chuck, please don't give up on me!  
_

She had finally had enough of it. Everyone who cared about her had been trying to tell her. Her very subconscious had been screaming at her to see it. Sarah sat at the table by her hotel window staring out at the city beyond. Why in heavens name was this so hard to do? She had to make a decision, to stay or leave, to run or fight, to fight her own emotions or to give in to them.

She sat for a long time staring at her cell phone sitting on the table in front of her. Finally, she picked it up and hit the send button. "Hi, Chuck. Do you have any plans for dinner tomorrow night? No? Good! …Me? I'm fine, doing much better. How are things coming along at the new office?..."

* * *

**A/N **I'm going to try to update this story regularly, but unfortunately in a few weeks I'm going to be starting a very busy time in my work season at my real job. I'll try not to keep you hanging, but I can't make any promises or rush the creative process. If I can avoid it there will be no cliffies, especially if it looks like there is the potential for a wait if I do leave you hanging on the edge.

Reviews are always welcome, and I might be looking for a beta reader if anyone is interested.

Bear in mind that this my first attempt at full blown fiction in over twenty-five years. The last time I did this was in college all those years ago.


	2. Act 1

**A/N** 4/13/12 - Okay, fellow Chuck fans, I now present to you Act 1. The prologue was intended to be the bait and hopefully this is the hook hiding beneath it.

I had originally planned on posting this story in its whole, as my primary motivation was to have a complete, cohesive, and polished story arc and to avoid having you the reader have to wait for the next act. But I became excited and impatient, and maybe a little concerned someone would post a story with a similar theme before I could get it done. The story as it stands now is written to a point half way through the 5th act of what I anticipate will be 12 acts. The outline/storyboard is complete and the catalyst is defined and ready, and planned to occur somewhere around the...nope, not going to tell you.

The creative process has been my primary concern about posting this story serially. Being an individual who thinks and works in four dimensions has made writing to set a scene and a timeline fun and relatively easy for me, but as real life man of few and sharply delineated words, writing dialogue has been something of an obstacle and it has bogged me down on several occasions as I try to get myself into a characters head and make the dialogue belong to the character and describe what a character is doing along with their body language and expressions that are uniquely theirs and in character without overdoing it or becoming repetitive. That has been a steep learning curve for me, I sincerely hope that the process doesn't keep you waiting as I work to finish this.

Mac

**I don't own Chuck.**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 1**

The car drove slowly down the suburban residential street in the early morning light, the low sun filtered through the trees and dappled the windshield with shadow and light as its driver took in the view of the various homes lining the road and the ambiance of the neighborhood. Slowing down a little and looking out the passenger side window showed that the 'for sale' sign was still out in the front yard as the car pulled around the corner and parked on the side street. The driver's side door opened and a pair of black high-heeled boots were revealed as they stepped to the pavement and then strode up the sidewalk to a side gate in the short fence surrounding the back yard. The yard was being cared for but showed a lack of personal attention that announced that the home hadn't been lived in for quite some time. The lawn was mowed and neat but the flowerbeds were slightly overgrown and the many flowers growing in them had a wild and chaotic appearance. An open raised planter gave the hint of a vegetable garden that hadn't seen anything growing in it for a while.

Stepping through the unlocked gate and walking down the winding brick path toward the back door of the house showed a yard that was quiet and serene. The neighborhood was almost silent at this early hour on a Sunday morning with the exception of a few birds chirping in the trees and a small dog yapping somewhere nearby. The red back door to the house was set into a white frame and paned windows in the upper third of the door showed an entry and laundry area beyond it. The bump key slid silently into the lock and a light tap on it with the pommel of the boot dagger was all it took to make the doorknob easily unlatch with a quick twist. The house was silent and the early morning sun was streaming through the kitchen and eating area windows displaying a kitchen with white and red tiles on the counters, white and black tiled floors, white cabinets, and porcelain fixtures. A high bookshelf surrounded the eating area that had a bay window on one side of it. The room had a nostalgic and old fashion craftsman charm to it. Walking into the hardwood-floored living room and looking to the right revealed a front entry area, a staircase landing leading to the upper floor bedrooms, and a crystal clear memory, a very painful memory of a man tumbling down the staircase. The boot heels tapped on the wood floors around the room as the view of it was taken in. Multi-paned windows flanked a fireplace framed in white trim and white crown molding surrounded the edges of the ceiling.

And then, there it was. Interestingly, in spite of all that had transpired here weeks ago, all the damage that had been wreaked on the house, it was still there on the wood trim of the passage between the living room and the dining room. A feminine hand gently glided over the roughness of it in a slow caress and paused on it, pressed firmly on it, and then slid down below it. Sarah + Chuck.

Sarah's head came forward and rested against the passageway frame, her eyes tightly shut and the edges of them glistening with the tears they were trying to contain. Her face was a picture of veiled anguish, her lips tightly closed and drawn into a line. And then the memory swiftly returned. And when it did, it was as if it was edged in jagged white light. It was a wonderful and tender memory, filled with promise and hope for the future. A candlelit room and talk of each others fondest dreams and what they would do to make them be. How they would someday be made a reality. But as it blazed into her consciousness, she was suddenly overcome with pain; a pain like someone had snuck up behind her and stabbed an ice pick into her ear. She gasped loudly and spun around, her eyes wide open in shock, and then her back slid down the frame as she sat on floor, her vision overcome by bright white flashes of light as she held her head in her hands. After a while the pain finally passed and she slowly and shakily regained her footing and stared around at the room with a look of bewilderment on her face. Sarah Walker ran from the house and back to her car and quickly drove away. She drove aimlessly around the neighborhood for several minutes trying to get her bearings back. Because for those several minutes she didn't know where she was.

- II -

Chuck stood in the middle of a large rectangular room with wood floors. Art deco style pendant lamps hung at regular intervals from the high coved stamped metal ceilings on the top floor of the circa late 1970's three story office building. Columns covered in very ornate white molding separated the large windows spaced at regular intervals on two sides and they gave the room a very open and airy yet stately appearance. Those many windows were being modified for security and privacy, and also to create a more friendly work environment for the computer workstations and large haptic monitors that would soon occupy the room. The opposite wall on the long dimension of the room had white wainscoting that matched the window columns and it ran about five feet up the wall, which was topped by red brick. There had been several very cleverly hidden modifications made to this part of the building, Chuck looked at them with a discerning eye and was satisfied that those modifications were undetectable. The wall also had white arched wood framed portals to two very large offices that were also lined with windows identical to the windows in the larger room they were now standing in. The remaining wall behind them looked more recently constructed. It had a pneumatically operated glass double doorway to one very large room with window walls facing to the room they were standing in and an air-conditioned plenum false floor. The room was being filled with nineteen-inch computer racks. And finally, off to one side of this wall was a large arched portal opening connecting to a wide hall that led to other offices, two labs, and the large reception area. The new Carmichael Industries offices were now right where Sarah Walker-Bartowski had originally suggested they be located when she had first conceived the idea to re-purpose the companies objectives and floated the idea to Chuck right before that 'one last mission' where so much had gone so horribly wrong.

As they took it all in, Morgan, who had been standing there the whole time with his best friend asked Chuck, "So, do you really think purchasing Ronald Reagan's old offices will lure Casey back to work with Carmichael Industries? I'm not sure even this is going to be enough to pry him away from Gertrude Verbanski. Alex and I haven't heard a word from him in days. He's become something of a ghost lately."

Chuck snapped back to the present and grinned at Morgan. "Knowing how much Casey worships Ronnie, this will at the very least entice him to pay a visit to the place, buddy. We'll just have to see how long that's going to take once he finds out about it."

"Has Nikki been able to locate Gertrude and him?" Asked Morgan, "The two of them aren't even answering their phones right now. It's so obvious that those two have got something really big going on between them. It conjures up thoughts I don't even want to entertain, I need some brain bleach now", he said with a grimace on his face.

Chuck laughed, "Yeah, a big bottle of brain bleach, pal. Finding Casey is priority number one for Nikki at the moment and she knows it's very important to me. She'll find him," and then he added, as a bigger grin spread across his face, "and when she tells Casey we've installed a nice armory and a six stage twenty-five yard indoor range here, it won't take long for his curiosity to get the better of him."

Five days earlier Chuck had hired Carmichael Industries brand-new 'office manager'. Nikki Lawson had impressed him immensely from the moment he first met her. She was a perfect fit for the new re-purposed computer espionage and cyber security business that Carmichael Industries was transforming itself into. Nikki had computer science and business degrees from ASU, and a quick-witted intelligence that had Chuck's head spinning immediately. Morgan was just overwhelmed by her. Nikki was busy finding Casey, screening new employees, setting up the new front offices and arranging high security broadband enterprise and satellite connections while Chuck and Morgan were concentrating their efforts on the office hardware requirements and overseeing the construction of some special remodel projects for the new offices.

Chuck wandered over to one of the windows overlooking East Colorado Blvd. and stared out at the traffic and the activity in the panorama outside the window, as he did he became lost in thought.

After the attempted bombing by Nicholas Quinn at the Pacific Concert Hall a little over a month ago events had moved at a whirlwind pace for Chuck. General Beckman had seen to it that the Carmichael Industries assets that had been previously seized by the CIA were finally released back to him and his wife. Also as a way for rewarding Chuck and his team for saving her, and over a thousand other people that night at the music hall, Beckman and the new Director of the CIA had pushed through several very lucrative contracts for computer security and espionage work and Carmichael Industries' business suddenly took off like it had been shot out of a cannon.

It was decided at that time that Chuck would hang onto the ownership of the Buy More store and it would remain a cover for operations that Carmichael Industries was still conducting in Castle below the Buy More building. The ownership had been transferred to a shell corporation and Chuck had appointed Morgan to the presidency. Big Mike was now the store manager again and he was now being less than gently encouraged by his stepson to take a more active role in the day-to-day operations of the store. He seemed to be rising to the challenge. The yogurt shop was now closed and in its place a small office front concealed what was now the main entrance to Castle. Morgan had practically lifted Chuck off the ground in a bear hug late last week when he and Chuck walked up to the offices and Morgan read the company name in gold leaf on the window next to the door – Cobra Holdings Corporation – he was ecstatic.

Carmichael Industries' close ties to the CIA and NSA had resulted in the decision to make Castle a satellite joint CIA/NSA substation again and the high security lab for Carmichael Industries. Several CIA and NSA agents and technical specialists would now soon be stationed at Buy More, Cobra Holdings, and Castle. Chuck and Morgan had found themselves reinstated in the CIA as a result of all of this shuffling and Chuck received a promotion to Station Chief status even as he remained a private contractor to the agency through his company. He now reported to the Deputy Director of Science and Technology and oddly enough the Deputy Director now even reported occasionally to him. It was a strange arrangement, but one of the several conditions that Chuck had demanded and received from Beckman and the CIA Director when the deal was struck. Only time would tell how well the arrangement would hold up but so far in just the span of a couple of weeks dividends were being paid by the highly unorthodox partnership.

Nikki Lawson was one of the excellent things that had come from that arrangement. She had come to work for Chuck on the recommendation of the Digital Dave O'Conner, Director of Science and Technologies' 'Field Resources Unit'. Nikki had the benefit of full background vetting and the compartmented level six security clearances required to work for Chuck, and she was helping to oversee the staffing needs for the new offices in Pasadena requiring similarly cleared employees. She also knew the full story about Chuck and Team Bartowski and had jumped at the chance to work with the person whose field exploits and ability to hack a computer network had rapidly become legendary in the 'eyes only' agency circles.

One of the first tasks handed to Chuck and his newly restructured company was the following and ferreting out of computer network tracks left by Nicholas Quinn when he was attempting to steal the completed Intersect 3.0 that Chuck now had in his brain because of the terrible chain of events that had led to him uploading it into himself after Sarah had shot Quinn that night at the heliport on the roof of the Pacific Concert Hall.

The internet cyber tracks that Chuck discovered Quinn and others had left behind were uncovering some disturbing information about Quinn's ties to what was originally thought to be the shards of a destroyed Fulcrum organization after the group had been believed to be decimated three and a half years ago in Barstow and other locations including Roark Instruments main offices. New evidence from these leads was now painting a picture of a Fulcrum rising from the ashes and a close relationship of some big players within the organization and some former employees of Roark Instruments, and intimate ties with all of those players to Nicholas Quinn. The encrypted and multi-mirrored internet communication trails were pointing to a as yet to be discovered hidden base of operations that Quinn had hidden somewhere in the L.A. basin, and it now appeared that a race was on between Fulcrum agents and the agencies Chuck was once again associated with to locate Quinn's base. There were concerns that Fulcrum had managed to reinsert agents into the CIA and this was hampering the search for Quinn's base and recruitment to Chuck's new team because of the threat it posed to operational security. Chuck was focusing like a laser on this problem right now and giving top priority to locating that base first, because in that hidden safehouse of Quinn's he was positive would be something that might be able to help Sarah, or possibly harm her more if it fell into the wrong hands. All of this new evidence, the fact that he now possessed the Intersect v3, and Sarah's departure from the company and also apparently from his life had helped to reinforce in Chuck's mind that he had made the right decision to reestablish his professional relationship with the government.

And just like that, like it seemed to happen to him at least a hundred times a day, he found his thoughts drifting to Sarah. He had seen her twice since that day on the beach four weeks ago, and spoken to her only a few times on the phone – two of those calls were to set up the only two 'dates' that they'd had. Every time he had tried to call her – and he was putting super-human effort into not doing that – Sarah's phone had gone to voicemail. Sometimes he left a message, most other times he just hung up. She eventually called him back and they mostly talked about the little things going on in their lives and what was going on with Chucks business dealings that he could talk about, because Sarah had yet to be reinstated as a CIA agent and he was prohibited from talking with her about most of what was happening with his business because of it.

The Saturday after their fateful day on the beach he and Sarah had met for coffee and croissants at a small café not far from Sarah's hotel. In spite of five years of lost memories for Sarah they'd managed to fill the time with idle talk for almost two hours and Chuck was beginning to see Sarah warm up to him in a way that reminded him of the Sarah from a time when they had known each other for only a few months and he was just a very important CIA asset, she was his handler, and they were involved in a 'cover relationship.' He'd left her that morning with an increased sense of hope that maybe they could pick up the pieces of their lives that Nicholas Quinn had so callously torn asunder, but that hope had faded somewhat when she didn't call or return any of his calls during the following week.

Then Sarah called on a Friday out of the blue and they talked on the phone until Chucks phone battery died. It had been a busy day full of business calls for him and when her call came in he looked at the battery state on his phone and his heart sank. As the phone beeped a warning at him Sarah had told him, "What did I tell you about keeping your phone charged."

Defensively he'd responded, "Hey, it was charged this morning, I've got a business to run and we're a little short handed around here right now, so I'm talking on this thing a lot more than I'd like to right now."

His frustration with the situation was starting to show and the call had gone downhill from there until his battery died. After he charged his phone he tried to call her back but the call went immediately to voice mail. It seemed Sarah wasn't going to talk to him on his terms.

Two weeks passed with only two phone conversations during that time. Mostly 'how are you doing', 'what have been doing', 'how's the business going', that sort of thing. Chuck honored her request to not bring up the past and avoided telling any stories of the things they'd done together for the past five years. It made conversation extremely stilted and difficult even for a chatterbox like Chuck, but he'd tried to make the best of it, even as his heart was starting to show some cracks. He kept trying to call Sarah every couple of days but they always went to voicemail after one or two rings. He was running out of fresh material for messages and he was starting hear an emotional edge to his voice as he left them (was it panic?). He decided to stop calling. It was ripping him up. He wasn't sleeping or eating well. It was starting to affect his work, and people were starting to notice.

Then Sarah called on the Friday of the fourth week since he'd found her on their spot at the beach. Friday seemed to now be her designated day for Chuck and he was now extra careful with his phone on that day. Sarah surprised him by asking him to dinner the next night. She asked him to pick the restaurant and told him she'd be by to pick him up at 6:30. They went to the Chinese restaurant that they had dined at on their first 'real' date, the one that was abruptly ended with Casey's Crown Vic crashing through the front window. This time the date was uneventful with one exception that was eating away at the edges of Chuck conscious mind. It was a pleasant dinner filled with stimulating conversation, and Sarah had shown a willingness to talk about the past and had even asked a few questions about it. It felt ground breaking, and he thought he might have seen some resurfacing memories from Sarah coming out of the small talk they were engaging in. And then when Sarah cracked open her fortune cookie she sat up suddenly stark straight in her chair and raised her left hand to her temple. His attention was instantly drawn to the startled fluttering expression in her eyes and he froze in horror – _did she just flash?_

"Sarah! What's wrong, are you okay? "

They both sat there staring wide eyed at each other for a moment frozen in time. Finally Sarah let out an barely audible gasp and rubbed her head for a few seconds as Chuck jumped up from his seat and grasped her hand by her head with a terrified look on his face, and he repeated himself, "Are you all right?"

Sarah recomposed herself quite quickly and she pasted a swift smile on her face in an effort to calm Chuck. "Yes, I'm fine, Chuck. Every now and then I just have these instances where I think a memory is coming flashing back to me and it's just overwhelming. I'll be okay, please don't worry over it, maybe it's a positive sign that those lost memories may be trying to come back to me."

The word 'flashing' made Chucks blood run cold, but he did his best to return her smile.

Suddenly, Chuck was once again aware of someone standing next to him at the window. He looked over, and there was Morgan with a very concerned look on his face. "Hey, pal, are you alright?" Morgan reached up to place his hand on Chuck's shoulder, "Did I just catch you thinking about her again?"

Chuck shot him a melancholy smile. "You mean Vicki Vale?…yeah."

" I thought so, it's hard to miss, dude."

Chucks expression then hardened, "Morgan, I think there may still be something wrong with Sarah, something we neglected to consider after we defeated Quinn. I think I need to talk to Ellie about it…and soon. We need to go to Castle right now."

- III -

The black Lotus Evora pulled into the parking lot in front of the Orange Orange Yogurt Shop and stopped in a space facing the front door – well, at least it used to be a yogurt shop; it was one a week ago when she had last been here to talk to General Beckman. Sarah did a startled a double-take, her eyes falling on the sign next to the door – Cobra Holdings Corporation – "Hmm, what the hell?"

She climbed out of her car and walked up to the door casually sweeping the area with her eyes as she crossed the parking lot. She pushed on the door. It was locked. Now what? Go into the Buy More and enter Castle through the home theater room? She really didn't want to be seen by any of the Buy More regulars right now, this was a problem. She looked again at the sign. Something was familiar about this company name, _something to do with Morgan Grimes(?)._ The lockset on the door looked like it hadn't been changed. Oh well, it was at least worth a try. She pulled out her yogurt shop key and tried the lock – it turned. She then pushed the door open and peaked inside. The tastefully decorated entry and reception area was empty and she stepped quickly through the door and closed it. Then she heard the beeping. The alarm panel was located in the same place it used to be and it hadn't changed either - so she keyed in her old code – the system disarmed and a sigh of relief passed her lips as she started to take in her surroundings.

_They did this in less than a week?_ Off of the reception area were two large offices and what looked like a small break room between them. It was a very nicely appointed office suite – _in one week? _She walked into the left hand office since that was the location where the entrance to Castle had been originally located. There was now a bookshelf covering the wall where the entrance used to be. _You've got to be kidding me, a secret door in a bookshelf? Jeez, Chuck. _She closed the office door and turned on the lights. _Where did they hide the damn palm scanner? _After taking a long look at the room layout and mentally pacing the distances in her head she opened the office door for a second and mentally gauged the distance from where she was standing to the front door. Examining the bookcase she concluded that the palm scanner should be _right about here. Surely Chuck wouldn't hide the access latch to the scanner from me? _

She dug into her memory for a clue from the past that would help her find it. Frustratingly, at first there wasn't one. She concentrated, furrowing her brow…a bookshelf. Where had she seen a similar puzzle before? A fuzzy memory wrapped in bright jagged glass…the Stanford library? Sarah's head hurt for a moment right behind her eyeballs...she stood there with her forehead in her palm until it passed. Then she reached under the shelf right below where the scanner should be and ran her fingers along the back of the front edge…_there! _She depressed the barely perceptible button and a section of the shelf and the books it contained retracted and slid out of the way exposing the palm scanner. _Yes! _Taking a deep breath she then put her right hand on the scanner. The center of the bookcase slide back behind the others with a mechanical sound and slid to the left revealing the passageway she always remembered that led down the metal staircase and into Castle.

Nothing much had changed here. The main conference area was unchanged and the conference table facing the bank of large monitors on the wall opposite the staircase was still the same, the armory was still where it had been, but the large computer work station opposite under the stairs behind the conference table had been replaced with a _very _large clear pane monitor designed for a haptic interface. In front of this huge monitor arrayed around it were three small desks with tall stools and nothing more than a keyboard and a mouse on them_. Interesting, what is going on here? _

Sarah, looked at her watch, and exhaled. She was barely on time. Why hadn't Chuck told her about these changes? _Duh, maybe if you'd bothered to return his calls._ As her gaze played around the room looking for any other things that might have changed since the last time she had been here the large monitors opposite the conference table came to life and there was General Beckman in her class A's on one monitor and Douglas Shepard, the new Director of the CIA on the monitor next to her.

"Hello, Sarah" said the General and the Director almost simultaneously.

Sarah, quickly composed herself standing at ease and replied, "General, Director, it's good to see you again."

Diane Beckman wasted no time getting to the point and the general's gaze bored in on her. "Sarah, have you seen Chuck recently?" Her question was more a pointed interrogative than it was a casual question.

"Why yes, General Beckman, I saw Chuck last Saturday night at dinner", Sarah replied guardedly, as she looked back and forth between the General and the Director of the CIA.

"Isn't that the first time you've seen him in over _three weeks?" _Beckman's question had a very hard edge to it.

"Um…yes", Sarah suddenly stammered, "Chuck is doing very well. We had a very enjoyable dinner together in Chinatown."

"I see. You say he's doing very well. How can you know that if you've barely spoken to him in a month? Did you actually listen to anything I said to you in our meeting last week?" inquired Beckman. There was a pregnant pause, and then, "How come you aren't answering his calls, and why aren't you calling him? You've certainly had ample opportunity to do so. Do the last five years of your life mean so little to you, Sarah?"

Beckman's tone had changed markedly from the conference she'd had with her the week before. Sarah was flummoxed, and she could feel her face turning scarlet from the questioning. _Were they monitoring my cell phone calls? Are they watching me? Why?_ _Why is General Beckman asking me these very personal questions?_ She didn't know what to say or how to reply to them.

Now Director Shepard spoke, and his tone was plain spoken and frank. "_Mrs. Bartowski_, we have been considering your request for reinstatement to Special Agent status, and my personal concern about granting that request stems directly from your memory loss of the last five years. I have questions about your ability to perform your duties because of it, and an even larger concern about your lack of motivation to address these issues as they pertain to your personal life."

"My personal life?"_ Since when did the CIA start caring about that? And how do I rebuild a personal life I have no memory of? __I'm still trying to figure that_ _out!_ And then the memory of a dream about the 49B popped into her head, ouch, she winced visibly.

"Memory loss or not", Director Shepard continued as if he'd heard her thoughts, "you need to confront the truth that you are married to a CIA Station Chief, and you need to do something about it. Your husband, _Station Chief Charles Bartowski,_ who just so happens to also be the _Intersect, _is incredibly important to our national security strategy, and we will not allow his performance in his duties to be compromised because of emotional issues. Either confront that, or get out of Chuck's way." He paused to let the statement sink in, and then continued. "Over three years ago the CIA and the NSA made the difficult decision to overlook the obvious emotional attachment shared by you and Chuck because we realized it could lead to great things given the way the two of you functioned as a team. The Agency put a lot of effort into developing the two of you as a couple through active training and the assignments you were given. Now you seem to think you can ignore that history simply because an enemy has stolen it from you? Why would you give an enemy a victory like that? This troubles me greatly, Sarah. You need to look at the larger picture here and at least make some effort to make things right if you want us to consider your reinstatement seriously."

Sarah's mouth fell agape, "_Chuck is a Station Chief?" _

"Yes", Diane Beckman replied, "Chuck accepted an assignment and promotion to Station Chief a few days after the bombing attempt at the concert hall. If you had thought to take your undeniable relationship with him more seriously maybe you would have found out about it sooner," she said with frost in her voice. "He would have been made a Section Chief if he had not insisted on keeping Carmichael Industries a private entity. That is probably all for the best, Chuck is a damn good field operative and I don't want to see him stuck behind a desk like me."

Sarah just continued to gape at the people who held the decision for her reinstatement in their hands and visibly began to wilt in front of them. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing would come out.

General Beckman's visage softened. "Sarah, if you want to be reinstated in the Agency you are going to have to see a therapist before it's going to happen. It's obvious to both the Director and myself that you need to address your memory loss before we can authorize a return to active duty status. Starting tomorrow you will be seeing Dr. Leo Dreyfus to see if you can work through some of these obstacles that have been thrust upon you. I think you probably know why I have chosen Dr. Dreyfus to see to your case. If at some point Dr. Dreyfus and you decide that it would be beneficial for Chuck to also attend these sessions, I have no doubt that he will be there in a heartbeat."

_In a heartbeat? Am I dreaming, or did I just hear General Beckman say that? _Sarah sat down abruptly into the chair behind her. She was dumbfounded. Were General Beckman and Director Shepard implying that she needed marriage counseling? Did Chuck mean that much to these two _very _important people? It now dawned on her that there was a lot she needed to relearn about Chuck Bartowski.

Director Shepard now spoke. "Report to Dr. Dreyfus' offices in Pasadena at 0930 hours local tomorrow morning. Directions to his office will be forwarded to your email account, but I believe you already know where his office is located. After your session with him tomorrow you can set your bi-weekly schedule with him at a time that is convenient for the both of you, but you _will _see him twice a week until a satisfactory conclusion is achieved. We're not placing a time limit on this _Probationary Agent_ _Walker-Bartowski._ We view you as a valuable agency asset not to be wasted, and we want you back. You're dismissed."

The screens went blank. Sarah didn't move from her seat there at the conference table for what seemed to her like a very, very, long, time.

- IV -

Chuck and Morgan quickly strode across the hardwood floors of the large room that would soon be Carmichael Industries 'Cyber War Room' then down a hall that was flanked by large offices and labs into the reception area of the office. The reception area was complete and the décor was selected to match the architectural features of the building. Behind a very large mahogany desk sat a stunningly beautiful young woman with short jet black hair that swept slightly forward onto her cheeks in a manner that reminded Chuck of Quorra from Tron Legacy. Aside from the color of her hair she could easily have been mistaken as Sarah Walker-Bartowski's younger sister. Although she was a couple of inches shorter than Sarah and more curvaceous of build her musculature spoke of a woman who spent a lot of time in the gym. Morgan without fail always melted in her presence, and she seemed to take great delight in it.

"Nikki, Morgan and I are going to over to Castle to place a couple of secure conference calls, we should be back in a few hours. Sorry to duck out on you like this, is there anything we can do for you while we're out?"

"I'm fine, Chuck, the break room is finally stocked and I have plenty of work to keep me occupied so don't worry about leaving me here alone." She broke into a devilish grin, "We're expecting hardware contractors and office furniture people any minute, but I think I can handle a bunch of nerds and desk jockeys for the afternoon."

Chuck shot a grin back at her, "Yeah, I think you can handle yourself fine in a room full of nerds. Don't hesitate to call if you have any questions that can't wait."

"No problem, boss, you'll be the first to know if anything unanswerable comes up." Which Chuck interpreted to mean he could expect to not hear from her.

"Wait a minute", Morgan squeaked, "we just can't leave her alone here with a bunch of hungry tech contractors, I think I should stay here to defend Nikki's honor from unwanted advances from the pocket protector army."

Chuck cast an accusing eye at Morgan and grabbed his arm, "C'mon, you're coming with me. I'm going to need the moral support doing what I need to do this afternoon more than Nikki needs your protection from a few more guys like us."

Nikki smiled at Chucks comment and looked back to the work on her monitor.

As they headed for the elevator Chuck turned around, "And, Nikki, if on the long odds Sarah calls here please have her call my cell phone immediately, it's very important. And if you get any news about Casey, call me right away about that too, O.K.?"

"Absolutely, Chuck, Sarah and Colonel Casey will always be a top priority around here, no worries."

"Thanks Nikki, we'll see you in a while."

"Bye Nikki", Morgan added in his best and most embarrassingly manly voice.

As the elevator door closed, Chuck looked over at his best friend ruefully and said, "Mind Cheater. How could you do that to Alex?"

Morgan's jaw dropped as he stared back at Chuck.

- V -

The brand spanking new European model Lotus Exige S Roadster went flying down the westbound lanes of Hwy 134 toward Burbank. It was one of only two Exige Roadsters in the United States, as the car wasn't officially being offered for sale in the states. Chuck had only taken possession of it the week before. It was almost the same color as Sarah's Evora, a deep metallic charcoal gray with a tan and cordovan leather interior. Sarah had made herself so scare lately she hadn't even seen it yet. Chuck had at first bought this car in an effort to spark some more mutual common interest with Sarah and he was hoping she would even ask to drive it. She had insisted on driving her car last Saturday much to his consternation so he hadn't been able to show it to her yet. After a few days driving it he had decided he loved the car so much he wasn't sure if he was going to let _anyone _else drive it, Sarah included.

After he had settled into the groove in the left lane he pushed the hands free remote to his cell phone and said, "Ellie", Morgan who was sitting in the passenger seat playing a game on his PSP shot him a sideways glance full of curiosity, then resumed his game with a shrug.

"Chuck!" Ellie giddily chanted, "How are you little brother? We miss you, when are you going to come out to Chicago for a visit?"

"Hi El, I think a trip to the windy city is going to be out of the question for a while. I doubt that I'll be able to spare a single minute from work for quite a while, things are going warp speed here right now, I'm sorry."

"I understand, Chuck, seeing as how we're working for the same people most of the time. Devon wanted me to make sure that I said hello for him if you called, and Clara misses her Uncle Chuckles."

"We miss all of you too, Ellie. "

Morgan piped in, "Hi Ellie!"

"Hi to you too, Morgan. How are things going with you and Alex?"

Morgan laughed exuberantly, "Things are going great, She's dragging me kicking and screaming into adulthood!"

Ellie returned the laugh, "Good, because I think Chuck could use another adult around, since I'm 1700 miles away."

Chuck rolled his eyes which was useless, he realized, on a phone call, "Thanks a lot, Ellie, you're a peach."

"Anytime little brother" she chuckled, "sisterly advise is what I'm here for." After a pause she said, "Speaking of sisters how is my sister, Sarah? We miss her too, you know."

Chucks face waxed melancholy for a second and immediately straightened up when he saw Morgan looking at him. "The simple truth is I haven't seen her much, El, but she seems to be O.K. when I do get to talk to her." No matter how hard he tried he couldn't completely erase the pain from the words.

The phone was silent but Chuck swore he could hear Ellie's frown all the way from Chicago. "I'm so sorry, Chuck, no one should have to go through what you and Sarah have been put through, both of you are in our thoughts, every minute of every day. I want you to know that."

A sad smile found its way onto Chucks face. "Thanks Ellie, I really do appreciate that, and I'll pass that along to Sarah for you too when I see her. Ellie, Sarah is the reason I called. There is something I need to talk to you about, but it will have to be on a secure line. Morgan and I are on the way to Castle right now and when we get there I want to set up a video conference call with you to discuss it. Can you pull yourself away from your research for a little while so we can talk?"

"Anything for you and Sarah, Chuck, I'll text the number to you"

"Thanks, El. Put on your game face, General Beckman will probably be on this call."

"I'll be ready, little brother. Chuck, is Sarah having some...memory problems?"

"I'm not sure _what_ to call it, El, but I'm very worried about her."

"Okay, Chuck. I'll be waiting for your call. We love you, Chuck. Bye."

"See you, El."

- VI -

As they pulled into the Mall lot the first thing Chuck noticed was Sarah's Lotus Evora parked in the space facing Cobra Holdings. There was a space open right next to her car so he parked the Exige next to it. As they climbed out of the Lotus Morgan put his hands on his waist then rolled his eyes and exclaimed, "Daaawww, will you look at this, you two practically have matching cars, this current situation you're both in simply cannot be allowed to stand."

"I hear ya, buddy", Chuck said anxiously, and he glanced at the two cars as they headed into the offices of Cobra Holdings, "and I'm going to do everything in my power to clean up this train wreck that one sick bastard caused."

They unlocked and entered the front door to the office and as they were crossing the reception area the door to security office opened and out walked Sarah. They all froze in their tracks. Chuck looked at Sarah and his eyes narrowed, he could tell right away that something was wrong. She had a guarded and pensive expression on her face and her body looked like it was wound up like a spring, but at the same time she looked like she was on the verge of collapse. This was not normal under any circumstances for the Sarah Chuck knew and he was immediately and overwhelmingly troubled by her look.

"Sarah..."

It must have showed on his face because Sarah suddenly adjusted herself and a tight controlled smile came across her face. Instantly she was back in control. "Hello boys, how have you been? Or should I say Station Chief Bartowski and Special Agent Grimes?"

They all stood there for a moment considering that greeting. And finally Morgan broke the silence, "Sarah, we've missed you around here, and at the casa too. Alex has been asking about you."

Sarah looked and him and she looked like she might say something for a second, but then she shifted her gaze back to Chuck. The look she cast his way was hard to read, like she wanted to say something important, but wasn't sure how to voice the words.

"Hi Chuck, I've been meaning to call you."

Morgan and Chuck exchanged a quick look. "I'm going down to Castle", Morgan hastily said, "I'll see you in a few minutes, Chuck. See you, Sarah." Sarah just nodded with a subtle look of gratitude in her eyes toward Morgan and he hurried to the Castle entrance and disappeared into the bookcase.

As the bookshelf could be heard sliding into place, and as a amused grin came onto her face, she said, "Really, Chuck, a hidden door in the bookcase? Isn't that a little like agent 86 and a shoe phone?"

Chuck grinned back at her, "What can I say, I have a fondness for spy clichés, agent 99. Wait till you see the new cone of silence." And he pondered that question from her, because as he remembered, he was the one with whom Sarah had first watched a 'Get Smart' episode on TV. "Besides what self respecting spy would possibly think to look for a hidden door in a bookcase." As the words passed his lips he bit down hard on the lower one in an effort to draw blood from himself.

Sarah saw his reaction to his own statement and smiled. "Remember, I have a fondness for edged weapons, Chuck."

"Yeah, believe me, I haven't forgotten, I remember what you did to your clock…" he let out a groan, "Two insensitive comments in two sentences, I'm on a roll. Sorry about that. I assume you found your way in to Castle?"

She smiled, and her eyes betrayed the humor she found in his awkwardness with a glint, "I remember skewering my clock too, Chuck. And yes, I found the latch for the scanner."

"You remember ruining your clock? Do you remember why you did it?"

Sarah nodded and seriousness returned to her face, "Chuck, we need to talk. I've been granted probationary reinstatement into the Agency, but it's subject to completing a psych evaluation and therapy. Did you know anything about this?"

A look of defensiveness mixed with sympathy crossed his face, "No, I didn't know about it, but I'm not surprised. Diane has suggested that I should see Dr. Dreyfus about this chaos we've had tossed into our laps. I've been seriously considering it."

Sarah gave him an appraising look, "Diane? You're on a first name basis with the general now?" Before he could respond to the question she continued, "Dr. Dreyfus has been assigned my case. I've been ordered to report to his office at 9:30 tomorrow."

"I think I see a pattern here," he responded reflectively. "Is everything okay, Sarah? You looked like you'd just had an encounter with a werewolf when I first saw you."

"I'll be okay, Chuck, but sometimes a meeting with the Directors of the NSA and the CIA _can_ feel like an encounter with the supernatural." She forced a laugh, "I'd like to talk more about this, Chuck, and some other things too…but right now I'm just exhausted and I need to get some rest."

"That's fine. Morgan and I were just about to have a conference call with the boss." He could see sudden curiosity in Sarah's eyes. "And yes, we need to talk Sarah, it's important that we do. Get some rest and I'll call you when I get done with this meeting and some loose ends at the office. Hopefully the boss will hold her human form for the entire meeting," he quipped, and managed to draw a smile from her that made it to her eyes.

All the time they had been talking the two of them had been edging closer together. Sarah reached out, grabbed his hands, and stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. It was quick, and it left Chuck standing there with a surprised look on his face. "I'll be waiting for your call," she said. _And this time I'll answer it!_

She turned quickly and headed for the door, "I'll see you later, Chuck", she said as she looked intently at him over her shoulder while she opened the door.

"Bye." He started to walk to the entry to Castle.

But he had no sooner taken two steps when the office door reopened and Sarah stuck her head back in looking at him with a surprised and curious expression on her face. She jerked her thumb back over her shoulder towards the parking lot and said, "Was there an ulterior motive for this?"

He let a big sappy grin spread across his face, "Maybe."

Sarah responded with a very big grin of her own, "You are a very shrewd operator, Chuck." And she was gone like the Cheshire cat.

* * *

**A/N **Thanks for reading and stay tuned. Reviews are always welcomed.


	3. Act 2

**A/N** 4/16/12 - I've had a good week, so I'm posting this several days early. I completed Act 5 today and it felt very good, so I'm working hard to keep the momentum going. A special thanks to Frea, Nervert, and Kate for lighting the fire beneath me. This has been more fun than I imagined.

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 2**

Sarah walked around the Lotus Exige S Roadster parked next to her car. My, it was a pretty car, and she wanted to drive it! Not quite the same color as her Evora, but close, and the deep metallic finish sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight. Curiosity was burning within her to know how differently the two cars might drive. After another longing look at it and a peek into the interior (the top was off), she resisted the temptation to sit in it and the further temptation that it might have created if she did, so she reluctantly climbed into her Evora for the drive back to her hotel.

As Sarah pulled out of the lot she remembered the fact that she wouldn't let Chuck drive her own car and wondered whether he was trying tweak her a bit with this car of his. Curiously the memory of not letting Chuck drive her car caused an immediate headache that emanated from right behind her eyes and radiated outwards towards her temples. She shook her head in what she realized was an odd attempt to shake the feeling off. She drove right past the freeway on-ramp. "_Dammit," _she exclaimed to herself as she realized what she had done and drove to the first available turn lane to do a U turn.

When she opened the door to her hotel room a little while later her eyes fell to a shiny disk at her feet just inside the door. Attached to it was a Post-It note. She picked it up and read the note:

_Hey Walker,_

_I figured Chuckles wasn't going to push this on you, he's too much of a gentleman. But I didn't see why I shouldn't. Sometimes I think you need a good shove, so I made a copy of mine for you. Call me anytime if you want to talk about it._

_-Carina_

She pulled the Post-It note off of the disk and written on the face of the disk printed in Sharpie was:

Chuck & Sarah

May 14, 2011

A DVD? A moment of raw fear and hesitation gripped her and butterflies filled her chest. She glanced over at the flat screen TV and the DVD player below it and then looked back at the DVD and reread the title. She stared at it for she didn't know how long, and finally she looked back at the DVD player. Crossing the room her hands slowly reached for the tray switch, placed the disk in the tray, and reached for the remote control. As she sat with her legs crossed on the bed with the remote cradled in her hand and her gaze fixed on the play button she remembered how the mission logs had affected her almost a month before, and her eyes and face were filled with trepidation …eventually she pushed the play switch.

- II -

"Hello Diane", Chuck said to the screen as the large monitor came to life. Beckman was wearing a crew neck cotton knit sweater, casual wear, and from the looks of the background behind her she must have been in her den at home judging by the family photos on the credenza and the wall behind her. He looked at his watch. It was 7:10pm in DC. "I hope we aren't interrupting your dinner."

"Hello, Chuck. No, we just finished dinner a few minutes ago, you saved me from the clean up," a tight smile appeared on her face. "Good afternoon, Agent Grimes."

"Good evening, Diane." She threw Morgan a look that had a dagger flying in it, "I mean, General…sir, ma'am…*cough*," and Morgan squirmed in his seat.

Chuck gave his best friend a quick look of contained amusement and continued, "General, I apologize for calling you after hours like this, but I thought the matter was important enough to warrant it and didn't want to let it wait, especially in light of some new information I just received."

"That's all right, Chuck, there's nothing to watch on the TV tonight, NBC cancelled my favorite show, what did you want to talk about?"

"Diane, I have my sister Ellie holding on another secure line, I'd like to bring her into this conference if I may."

"All right Chuck, if this is important enough to pull your sister away from her research, bridge her in."

A few keystrokes on the keyboard in front of Chuck brought the monitor to life next to the one General Beckman was on and there sat Ellie in her scrubs apparently at her office desk and her father's repaired Rourk 7 laptop computer was open next to her with the screen casting a glow on her. "Hello General Beckman, Morgan. Little brother, I've been pacing my office worried sick since our conversation a little while ago. What's this all about?"

Chuck glanced back and forth between the General and Ellie's images on the screens and his face filled with apprehension. Catching this change, Morgan looked at Chuck, leaned forward, and placed his hands on the table, and then fixed a serious stare at the monitors.

Chuck looked deep in thought for a moment, "Ellie, how much do we know about the Ring version of the Intersect Sarah uploaded to herself and what Quinn did to her…does Sarah still have the Intersect?"

Ellie's eyebrows drew together and dropped as she tried to read Chuck's face. She glanced at the laptop next to her. "Chuck, I had a feeling you were going to bring this up, has something happened to Sarah?" A genuine look of alarm was drawn on her face.

"I think so, maybe, I'm not sure…yes", the yes was barely audible.

"What happened, Chuck?" Ellie, the General, and Morgan all asked simultaneously.

Chucks gaze flew rapidly to all three of them in surprise, and then it settled back on Ellie. "The other night when we were at dinner…I think she may have flashed."

"Tell me exactly what happened", said, Ellie.

"Well, we were at that Chinese restaurant that I took her to on our first date years ago," he saw Beckman's head tilt slightly at this and he paused with a shrug giving her a brief look of admission then continued, "She was opening her fortune cookie at the end of the meal – it was a pretty significant moment on that first date – and suddenly it was like her body went rigid, then her eyes got glassy and appeared to flutter a bit, and then she raised her left hand very quickly to her left temple and gasped like she was in pain. It completely freaked me out. She tried to play it down and told me not to worry about it. She mentioned something about having 'flashes of memories', and that freaked out me even more the way she said it. It looked like it was causing her a lot of pain. I'm worried, El."

"Chuck", said Ellie, "We aren't sure exactly what Quinn did to Sarah to erase her memories, but I've been looking into it here at the request of the General and the Director ever since I got to Chicago," she cast a guilty and questioning look at Beckman and Diane nodded for her to continue. "Our first conclusions were that after Quinn wiped her memories of the last five years – and we still don't know how he was able to selectively do that – and that when he was finished, we thought he removed the intersect to prevent any further deterioration or other control problems while he was using her. I've been going over Dad's research the last few days and I'm beginning to think he used some sort visual stimulation technology to make Sarah uncontrollably flash, and instead of removing the Intersect, he just tried to overload it and burn it out. It's something like suppressing it like Mom did to you but the method is much more like torture than anything else."

"_Quinn_ _tortured her?"_

"Yes, I'm sorry Chuck, but I think that is exactly what he did to her. I now believe that the Intersect is suppressed in Sarah along with her memories. Maybe suppressed isn't the right term, I think I had it right the first time, he overloaded it until it failed, but it wasn't removed. The flash you saw may be an association to resurfacing memories that were suppressed through that torture. This may be what is causing the pain for her but it could also be pointing to something more serious. If the Ring version of Intersect starts to be become active again it could cause further cognitive deterioration even as she starts to regain her memories. A governor like the one dad made for you might help some, and I'm working on that now, but if Sarah starts to flash uncontrollably…we need to keep a close eye on her for the time being." Ellies face clouded over, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Chuck"

Chuck's head fell into his hands and he exhaled forcibly. He was trying to maintain control of himself and failing. Morgan reached over and started to rub his friends shoulder where it joined his neck, empathy and concern written on his face.

General Beckman spoke, "Chuck, rest assured, we are going to get to the bottom of this. We will do everything in our power to help Sarah. I'd like you to spend as much time with her as you can, watch her carefully, and report anything out of the ordinary that you see immediately to Ellie or me, understood?"

"General, I can't even get her to return my phone calls, how am I going to convince her to let me spend that much time with her?"

"That problem is being addressed as well."

"_What?"_

"Chuck", Beckman continued, "Go see Sarah. Tell her in no uncertain terms that you will be her shadow for the foreseeable future. Level with her if you have to, but I would recommend you avoid that to prevent any more stress than she's already experiencing. I guess I'm asking you to be her handler, Chuck. You'll know what to do, you learned from one of the best…Sarah." Diane Beckman had showed a rare moment of emotional candor on the screen in front of him. "In the meantime Station Chief Bartowski we will be pursuing every lead we can to locate Quinn's safehouse there in Los Angeles. We believe that the technology that Quinn used on Sarah is in that safehouse and that it will help your sister shed some light on a way to help Sarah. I have four teams working this case right now, and I want you to keep looking using the means you know best too, consistent with your mission to protect Sarah. If we find anything, you'll be the first to know."

"Chuck", Ellie said, "I'll continue to look for a way to help Sarah here at my lab no matter what we do or don't find from Quinn. I believe we can fix this. I think I'll have a working governor for Sarah in three or four days; there are some very talented people here in Chicago helping me with this. Once we have a working prototype I'll be bringing it out there personally, and I'll also be coordinating with Dr. Dreyfus to make sure we can come up with the most effective way to treat this."

"Speaking of Dr. Dreyfus", Chuck continued, "I saw Sarah as we were coming into Castle and she mentioned her reinstatement being provisional, contingent upon an undisclosed amount of therapy and evaluation. I have concerns that this therapy could actually be detrimental to Sarah at this time given that we now think she may still have an unstable version of the Intersect in her head."

Beckman looked at him for a couple of seconds, as she seemed to be considering her reply. "Dr. Dreyfus will be fully briefed on the new developments we have discussed today and Sarah's treatment plan will be carefully adjusted accordingly because of it. In the meantime, Chuck, I want you to take Sarah to her appointments with the doctor. Tell her that's an order from me if you have to. At this time she is to be considered a subordinate, is that clear?"

Chuck swallowed loudly, "Yes, General." And then he considered her statement. Chucks face started to show the resolve that he knew he could always muster when the odds were stacked against him. He was going to do this. And he was going to save the love of his life no matter what it took.

"I'm going over to Sarah's hotel right now. Morgan, steal one of the unmarked herders and go fill Nikki in on the current situation and don't let her good looks fluster you into leaving out any details, understood?" Morgan started to open his mouth but Chuck checked him with an upheld hand, his mouth snapped shut. "Tell Nikki to redouble her efforts to find Casey, and to make sure she tells him what Sarah's current situation is. I have a feeling we're going to need Casey's help if we locate Quinn's safehouse."

Morgan made a crisp nod of his head as an answer.

Chuck looked back up at the monitors and caught Diane Beckmans's eyes, "And with that", she said, "this briefing is over. Good luck, Chuck."

The monitors went blank and Chuck and Morgan quickstepped out of Castle.

As they stepped out the door of the office into the parking lot Morgan looked up at his friend and said, "Try not to worry over it, Chuck. Maybe what you saw the other night was just the afterglow from those exquisite dumplings they serve at the Lo Ming," as he pasted on his most reassuring Morgan smile.

Chuck gave him a tight-lipped grin and clasped his hand on Morgan's shoulder. "Thanks buddy, I'm really glad you were here with me during that call, it means a lot to me."

And he strode off to his car.

- III -

Sarah awoke on her bed and for a moment tried to get her bearings. She was still dressed and laying on top of the bedspread, and she had a nasty headache. The TV was on and fixed on the screen was a still picture of the back of a Limousine with the words 'Just Married' written in a banner on the rear window and cans and ribbon dangling from the rear bumper.

She started to tear up all over again. She wiped her cheeks as she walked to the bathroom to get a bottle of aspirin, poured three of them into her hand, and reached over for a bottle of water and took a long pull from it after she threw the aspirin down. And then she reached for her cell phone. The phone display said it was 4:45pm. She'd been asleep for about an hour. She scrolled through her contact list and dialed.

The voice on the other end asked sarcastically, "Hello Walker…or should I say Bartowski? I figured you would call, but not this quick."

"You were one of my Bridesmaid's, Carina?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah, hard to believe isn't it? Zondra and me. It would have been the whole Cat Squad if Amy hadn't tried to kill the rest of us…long story for another time. How have you been Bartowski? Are you back at home with Chuckles? And how come you aren't doing something unmentionable with him instead of talking with me right now?"

Sarah felt the blood rising up her neck and an odd sensation masked by, what? Guilt? "I haven't seen Chuck much for the last month or so, we're having some problems at the moment"…she blew out big sigh. "It's a long story Carina, let me explain…"

"Stop the bus" Carina interrupted, "You don't have to say a thing, I'm the one who sent you the DVD, remember? I knew something was up weeks ago when I started getting transaction alerts on Sasha Miller's credit card accounts. I saw Casey and Gertrude in San Tropez last week and he told me the whole story, which is rather extraordinary when you think about it, coming from a guy like him," she laughed.

"So you know what has happened to me and how it's totally wrecked not only my life, but Chucks too."

"Yes, if I could dig up Nicholas Quinn and bring him back to life so I could shoot him in the face, I would," Carina said, flatly, "But listen to me, Sarah. Quinn can only ruin your life and Chuck's if you let him."

That last statement hit Sarah hard. "Carina, can we get together for a talk? I could really use the ear of a friend I can actually remember right now."

"That'll be a little tough to do right now, I'm in Amman, Jordan at the moment."

"What?" She flushed again, "Oh, jeez, it's three in the morning there, I'm so sorry I woke you up! How did that DVD get under my door?"

Carina laughed, "Don't worry about it, Bartowski, my note said call anytime. Next time I'll be a little more careful what I write. Somebody owed me a favor, I called it in."

Every time Carina had called her 'Bartowski' in this conversation it had caused Sarah's heart to skip several beats; she was starting to feel a little lightheaded. Several seconds passed.

Carina finally spoke, "Sarah, why haven't you seen or talked to Chuckles more than a couple of times all this time? You know he really is an adorable guy in his own nerdy kind of way", she chuckled, "Are you afraid you'll fall for him all over again just as quickly as you did last time? "

_What did she say? How does she know? _ "Did I really fall for Chuck that fast?"

"Girl, you fell head-over-heals for that boy. Faster than I _ever_ thought would be possible for you. You'd better snap out of it and take another look at this guy you're meeting all over again for the second time. How many girls in the world can say they fell for the same guy twice like that, and a very good looking one at that if you don't mind my adding, I'm just sayin'…but don't let me try to influence you." And in a challenging tone she added, "If you don't do something about this soon I may have to do something myself if you keep neglecting him."

That challenge made Sarah look up from her lap with a start and her eyes fell on the clock on the dresser, "Carina, let's talk some more later, I'd better get off the phone, I'm expecting a call from Chuck any minute now."

"That's the Sarah Bartowski I know."

More lightheadedness, "Carina?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"Call me anytime, Bartowski. Tell Chuckles I said hello and give him a big hug for me."

- IV -

Sarah looked at the picture on the TV again and reached for the DVD player remote. As she started to view the video for the second time her cell phone began ringing. And Chuck's grinning dark curly haired head from three years ago filled the screen. She stared at the picture for a few seconds hearing some of Carina's words buzzing in her head. She snapped out of it, hit the talk button, and raised the phone to her ear.

"Hi Chuck"

"Hi Sarah, I just got into my car and I'm headed over to your hotel right now. Can I take you out to dinner?"

"You mean you just climbed into that beautiful Lotus roadster and your first thought was coming to see me?" she asked.

He chuckled, "Yeah, and coming to see you is giving me an excuse to drive it really fast."

She smiled at that, _my goodness he really is a charmer! _ "I'll be here…and dinner sounds great, I'm famished. And, Chuck? Don't get a ticket, it'll only slow you down."

"Just let them try, they'll have to catch me first."

"Keep that beautiful car, and more importantly yourself in one piece, Chuck, I'd like to drive it, and I'm sure it wouldn't be the same if it was bent."

"I'm hanging up now, I need to concentrate. I'll see you in a little while." And he let out a breath as he pulled onto the Interstate 5 on-ramp…and flashed as he dropped the transmission down two gears and heard the bark of the supercharged V6 and felt the subtle oversteer as the power hit the ground under the tires.

- V -

Frankie Sanders was a thin and wiry man filled with nervous energy. His body and his mind were both in constant motion. As he rifled quickly through the cabinets scattered around the large room in this warehouse it might have been readily apparent where he had gotten his nickname. But his nervous energy wasn't the main reason he had the nickname 'Wired'. He was given that nickname by the people he worked with because of his amazing abilities with esoteric technologies, everything from computers, software, and encryption technology, to electronics design and implementation. He was Nicholas Quinn's tech man.

And ever since Quinn had fallen off the radar about a month ago Frankie had been in panic mode. He had been left at the safehouse to wait for Quinn and the delivery of the Intersect so he could evaluate the integration of the processor keys with the upload glasses and programming that had been stolen from DARPA. The ultimate goal was to be able to make streamlined copies of the package that integrated the technology so it could more reliably and easily be used for Intersect updates to the user. But Quinn and the rest of the team had never returned to the safehouse. He suspected the worst, that Quinn had been captured or killed in his attempt to steal the third key and commit his planned act of terror at the Pacific Concert Hall. Now Frankie was trying to gather up all the remaining pieces so he could sell it all to the highest bidder and then disappear.

He was searching for something in the large room where Quinn had been in the process of forcefully wiping Sarah Walkers memories from her by causing her to uncontrollably flash on the faulty Ring Intersect she had in her brain. Agent Walker had activated her emergency tracker alerting her team to her location, and interrupted the process, a process that even Frankie could only describe as torture. Wherever Quinn had disappeared to, Frankie hoped the one place he was most of all was dead and in hell.

"Hello, Wired, are you looking for this?"

Frankie whirled around and his focus fell onto the hole of a very large suppressor on a very small gun. Behind the gun was Edger Sloan; and in Edger's other hand was the video camera he had been tearing the place apart trying to find. It had been left here in haste as they bugged out just ahead of Sarah Walkers teammates.

"Where are the cards and the rest of the tech, Frankie?"

"Cards? I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about, Edgar."

"Don't B.S. me, Wired, I've seen the video on this thing. It shows Nicholas using them. The flashcards…NOW."

"I don't know where they are, Edgar. I thought the video would give me a clue where to find them." Sweat was popping out onto Frankie's brow.

"Who was Quinn using the cards on wired? This video only shows Quinn. Is there more?"

"I don't know, Sloan," he lied, "I was hoping the video would show that too."

Sloan pointed the Walther PPK at Frankie's head, pulled the hammer back, and scowled, "Frankie I know you've been working at Quinn's base. I'd rather have you working for me now but you'll have to be more forthcoming for that to happen. If you don't tell me where those cards are, this is going to get very ugly; we might have to show you a way to more appreciate your nickname."

"I'm telling you I don't know where they are! And if I did tell you Quinn would kill me!" His eyes darted around the room looking for an escape. He spun around and bolted for the doorway he entered from.

He didn't get two steps before the suppressed Walther popped over the metallic sound of it's action cycling. The bullet struck Frankie in the back of his left knee and he fell screaming onto the concrete floor.

"Quinn is dead, Wired, and now you're going to tell me where his hangout is, one way or the other."

- VI -

Sarah figured she didn't have much time as she ran into the bathroom and showered like there were only minutes to spare. More minutes were lost as decisions were made about what undergarments to wear. _My goodness girl, what are you thinking? This can't be happening…_

She assessed her image in the mirror as she was putting her makeup on and decided she liked what she saw, and the look she was seeing in her own eyes gave her pause. _What is going on here?_

As she was pulling a short very snug fitting glittery charcoal gray knit dress up over her hips a knock came from the door and she swiftly pulled the bodice straps over her shoulders and slipped into her black high-heeled shoes.

She hurried over to the door, took a quick glance through the peephole, and opened it.

"Wow, you got here fast."

"I was motivated", he said, as he smiled, dropped his chin a bit, and did the Bartowski eyebrow dance, "Your doorman almost wouldn't let me on the elevator, he must be new around here. And if may say," he said, while looking her up and down, "you look fantastic, like you always do…as always...fantastic..."

"Thank you" Sarah beamed at him, and her smile threw him back on his heels. "Our doorman is a little overprotective, and you do look like a pretty rough character." And admittedly, he did. He hadn't shaved since 5:00am that morning, his skin had a slight sheen from a stressful day, and he was still wearing the dark gray t-shirt, dark blue jeans and black leather jacket he had unceremoniously thrown on that morning. And of course, he was wearing his endearingly outdated and trademark Chucks on his feet, which softened the look a bit. He looked a little wild after what had proved to be a very long and stressful day.

"Sorry, I wasn't planning on a date tonight when my day started and there was simply no reprieve at the end of it to regroup, this is me in the raw, " he said in a more matter-of –fact way than he ever thought possible, and spread his arms with a grin on his face that was only possible from him.

"That's okay, Chuck, I know how incredibly demanding the day can be for an international man of mystery."

"Lady, you don't know the half of it…well as an international woman of mystery you probably have an insight into much more than half of it", and his eyes said it all as he offered her his arm, "shall we dine?"

- VII -

They enjoyed a leisurely dinner at a small Italian restaurant in Echo Park not very far from their apartment. It was difficult to conceptualize it that way. Chuck knew the apartment was their place, but Sarah simply didn't appear to have much concept of the idea. It was really weird, but he tried his best to ignore it. Pasta, a bottle of Chianti, and exhaustion helped to soften the nerves that were creeping up on him when he thought of what he needed to do between now and 9:30 the following morning. He'd been assigned a mission, and Sarah was now an asset to be protected.

He had picked this restaurant because he felt it was safe for Sarah. This was just a place they used go to get a quiet meal after a stressful day at work. They'd made memories here, but there hadn't been any groundbreaking moments for the two of them in this restaurant. He was hoping he would be able to change that tonight.

The talk at dinner had been delightful and Chuck was even starting to feel like his old self again. It was no small feat considering what Sarah and he had been through in the last two months. Something in him told him that when he felt this way amazing things could happen. It took him back to a time when Sarah had once said to him he could have anything in the world he wanted, and he remembered thinking at the time that the one thing in the world he wanted the most…was her.

He tried to hold those feelings in check, because there was something much larger at stake here than what his heart wanted right now, he had to protect Sarah, he had to put her safety above his. And then, all of the sudden it hit him like a two-by-four between the eyes, _this is the way I've always felt about Sarah! Why do anything different? _

It was so odd, because he'd always known that even when Sarah was his handler and it was her CIA sworn mission to protect him, all he ever wanted to do was protect her, and on many occasions he had done just that. There was no way he was going to stop doing that now it was simply unthinkable. He decided the best way to handle this was the way Sarah had handled it during their 'fake' cover relationship years before. This was not his style but he had to do it, and he decided to dive in headfirst. And besides this was how he really felt anyway, and at that time when she was assigned to protect him as he had concluded years later, so did Sarah very shortly after she had started to protect him. She had been smitten with him from almost day one. She was just going to have to learn to wrap her heart around the idea again. This was not his intention, seduction as an assignment, but tonight he decided he was going to make Roan Montgomery proud.

And for some reason Sarah was making it easier for him tonight, and he couldn't help but wonder what had happened to her in the last couple of days to cause this change because they hadn't spoken to each other since Saturday night. Up to this point Sarah had been avoiding talking to him at all. And then something Diane had said to him today popped into his head,_ "That problem is being addressed as well."_ And then he couldn't help but wonder what had happened during Sarah's meeting with the General and the Director that day besides her being ordered to see Dr. Dreyfus. _I guess it's good to have friends in high places_ he thought, and he shoved the thought out of his mind, not wanting to ponder the thought that maybe Sarah was being pressured by others. Then he considered his 'assignment'. Time to do this.

"I hope you enjoyed your Manicotti," he said, watching the wine swirl around in his glass as he twisted it in his hand, "nothing like good pasta to warm the belly and the heart." His eyes came up to fix on hers and held her gaze.

"It was delightful. Very heart warming." She smiled and raised her glass, the candle on the tabletop caused the red liquid within to pulse with the light from the flame, "This Chianti is fabulous too."

Chuck shot her the patented Bartowski smile then tipped his glass forward and clinked it against hers, "To heart warming pasta and good wine to go with it."

The smile Sarah returned to him lit up the room.

"Sarah, I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to see you with a smile like the one you're wearing right now." And it was. That smile was something he had missed so much since she had escaped from Quinn. It was good to see it again.

"Trust me Chuck, I'm not just wearing this smile, it's very real."

So much for channeling Roan, "One of these days I'd like to be able to wait long enough between putting my foot in my mouth to forget what these Chucks I'm wearing taste like…"

She looked at him appraisingly with a glint in her eye and laughed, "It's okay, Chuck, I know what you meant. I'm having a very good time tonight. I hope the party isn't over."

"Oh, no, the party is far from over. Remember, you're with the great Chuck Bartowski and one thing I do very well is over-plan an evening of romantic fun. Come on, lets get out of here. I have an idea."

They walked out to the car and as Chuck walked around it to open the passenger door for Sarah she stopped a few feet away from the car and looked at it with an approving eye. She slowly walked around the Lotus letting her eyes caress it. She stopped at the driver's door and looked at him with a devious grin. Chuck rolled his eyes and shrugged. He couldn't help but notice that the dress she was wearing matched the color of the car almost perfectly as he walked around the car eyeing her the whole way, then opened the driver's door for her, and never broke eye contact. The two of them were made for each other. She giggled at him as she slid into the seat and seductively wriggled her body into the leather upholstery in a way that caused him to blush. She saw it and smiled to herself with a look of subtle self-satisfaction as she turned and looked out over the steering wheel.

As he buckled his seat belt in the passenger seat he looked over at her and gave her a nervous grin. She was settling in, adjusting the seat, and feeling the distances to the wheel, pedals, and shifter as she did so. Her hands went to the top of the wheel and glided over it from top to bottom as she looked out the windshield. She started the engine and pumped the throttle lightly to listen to the sound of the supercharged V6 engine and nodded approvingly. Then she reached up, adjusted the mirror, and looked over at him with a huge smile on her face that lit the car up like daylight.

"Where to?" She asked playfully.

"How about Griffith Park?" he suggested, "Take the long curvy way there if you want."

"Of course" she responded, and swiftly pulled into traffic and accelerated the Lotus up the boulevard weaving through the traffic as she shifted through the gears.

"Just try not to get us busted, O.K.?" he said, as he hung on, goggle-eyed.

She gleefully laughed, "Just let them try, they'll have to catch me first."

Eventually they pulled into the Griffith Observatory parking lot and Sarah sighed as she pried herself away from the drivers seat. "Thanks Chuck, that was fun. I know how personal a car like this can be, that couldn't have been easy for you."

As they started to walk up toward the observation deck he rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully and smiled, "I guess now probably wouldn't be an appropriate time to remind you that you've never let me drive _your _car."

She laughed, "Like I said, a car like that is a very personal thing", and she looked over at him and linked her arm in his as they walked, "Thanks for sharing."

As they approached the observation deck Chuck exclaimed, "I like coming up here. I never get tired of the view from this place, day or night", and even as he said that he remembered a fateful night up here and hoped he hadn't screwed up by bringing Sarah to this place. He would have to make sure they avoided the playground.

Sarah, looked around at the view with a sense of Déjà vu, even though she hadn't spent a lot of time up here herself and said, "I can see why you'd like it up here, Chuck, it's a very serene spot right in the middle of a very bustling city", she glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye, "Sometimes it's nice to get away from all the noise and activity and reconnect with what's important."

He turned and cast her a curious look, and said quietly, "Yeah, reconnecting is always a good thing."

After a few seconds passed, "I talked to Carina tonight."

Now he was really curious, "How is Carina, what is she up to these days?"

"She's in Jordan. I woke her up when I called." She laughed softly, "I didn't realize she was half way around the world. She says hello, and wanted me to give you a hug for her," Sarah looked at him again from the corner of her eye, "though I'm not sure I want her putting her arms around you even vicariously."

Chuck grinned, "Ask Morgan sometime about Carina's sexual predatory tendencies."

Sarah looked at him incredulously, "_Morgan?…a_nd _Carina? Seriously?"_

"Serious as a heart attack," he answered with a chuckle. "What prompted you to call Carina?"

Still trying to shake the idea of Carina and Morgan out of her head she answered, "Huh? Did you ask me a question?"

With unmasked amusement in his voice he asked again, "Why did you call Carina?"

"Oh…she slipped a DVD under my door while I was out today …well, someone undisclosed did it for her. I thought she was in town, so I called her to see if she wanted to get together."

"A DVD?" And as it dawned on him what the DVD was he growled through his teeth, "I am going to _kill_ her. Must…control…fist…of…death."

Sarah couldn't help but laugh at his Dilbert reference, then she answered evenly, "Chuck, I actually thought it was very thoughtful of her…it was a beautiful wedding." She paused for a moment studying his reaction then, "She isn't the only one who's been dropping less than subtle hints to me about…things."

Chuck looked at her from under a furrowed brow, "Oh? Who else couldn't butt out and let you handle this on your own?"

She sighed, "A few others. Let's just say influential people...including my own subconscious." Then she let out bigger sigh as she grasped his hand, "Chuck, I'm not so sure I want to 'handle this' on my own anymore."

Chuck looked at her with an expression on his face that Sarah could only describe to herself as puréed emotions. She'd seen it before many times, and then pondered the source of her memory as she decided to stay quiet and let him process all of it for a few minutes.

Finally Chuck said with exasperation in his voice, "Carina's methods may be a little reckless and unorthodox but I've always trusted her motivations, and she's been a good friend. I'll try to avoid mortal combat with her for the time being."

"That's probably a wise decision. She's a good fighter, and the idea of having to patch the both of you up after a scuffle doesn't appeal to me."

Chuck smiled at the picture that conjured in his mind and then turned serious, "Sarah, don't let any of these people try to push you into something you're not ready to do."

_Always the gentleman, even with all this history we have. _"Have you ever known me to let anyone push me around?"

"Only one person. Don't let _her_ do it."

"Chuck, Diane Beckman only gets to push me around because she is my boss, funny how that sort of thing works. But she's also very right about what she's so pointedly been telling me lately. She's one smart and tough lady. I can see why the two of you have become friends."

Chuck answered her with an appreciative smile and a penetrating gaze into her eyes. It was very disarming and Sarah found her hand on Chucks arm and felt the tingle in her fingertips as her hand glided down his forearm to grasp his hand at her side.

They stood at the observation deck wall for a while taking in the view of the city lights. It was a cool evening so Chuck took off his leather jacket and placed it over Sarah's shoulders. It actually complemented the short glittery black dress she was wearing very well and he was admiring the view of her a bit. Then he noticed she was looking him over a bit too.

_Carina is right_, Sarah, thought to herself, _Chuck really is an adorable guy. Why haven't I noticed this before?_ Had losing five years of her life hardened her so much that she could so easily ignore this? She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and for the first time really took in the look of him in his t-shirt and jeans. Tall and lanky, but toned and muscular and broad shouldered. Not an ounce of fat on him, he had the build of a swimmer. She felt something stir within her, was it lust…or was it something else? She took in a deep breath.

Chuck noticed, and he looked over at her as she pulled her eyes forward and kept her gaze fixed over the city lights. "It's a beautiful view isn't it? I always enjoyed coming up here with my Dad and sister when I was younger. We'd stand up here for hours dropping nickels into the telescopes here on the deck and looking at the city." His face suddenly hardened and his eyes looked reflective as he considered the fact that his Dad would never be coming up here again.

Sara felt the unexpected change in him and looked at him. Something in her sensed the source of his sudden melancholy. She didn't remember exactly what it was, but she knew it was very important, and she moved close to him and put her arm around his waist and pulled him toward her as they both stood leaning against the wall, still facing out toward the city. When Chuck's arm slid around her waist she let her head fall on his shoulder and she shared his sudden and elusive sadness.

After several minutes Chuck appeared to be abruptly aware of her head on his shoulder and he seemed to suddenly snap out of what ever memory had overcome him as he turned his head and took in the breathtaking aroma of her hair and nuzzled her ear. She felt his breath on her neck and her own breathing hitched at the sensation of it. He reached to her and pulled her around to face him with a look in his eyes that she somehow recognized, and it felt mysteriously wonderful and exhilarating to her. His somber expression turned up into a smile that overtook her and Sarah found her eyes moving rapidly from his eyes to his lips and back again as they slowly moved closer together. She could feel his breath on her lips and it drew her in like a magnet. She felt that fluttering feeling in her chest again, and they kissed. Sarah thought back to their kiss on the beach and realized as it was deepening that this one was going to put that kiss on the beach to shame. This was so intense. She was seeing stars! She ran her tongue over Chuck's lower lip, his lips parted, and their tongues met half way. She went weak in the knees and sensed him catching her in his embrace. Oh, my! He was a good kisser! Her dreams had not been lying to her!

Finally after what seemed like an astonishing long time to Chuck they pulled away from the kiss to come up for air. He looked into Sarah's eyes and the best description he could find to describe the look on her face was awestruck. Her eyes positively glittered and then she quickly reached up and grabbed him by the back of his neck and kissed him again, the fingers of her hand moved up and weaved through his hair on the back of his head and her other hand was firmly on his back and drawing him tightly to her as his hands went to her sides in a tight embrace that slid up her back causing her breath to uncontrollably hitch. Chucks jacket that had been around her shoulders fell to the ground. _This was worth waiting for!_

Both of them slowly became acutely aware of many eyes on them and they broke the kiss to see many of the other people with whom they were sharing the observation deck were looking at them…some were staring. An older couple about ten feet to their left were looking at them with an admiring eye and the gentleman said to them, "Ah, young love, you two look like you should go get a room." His female companion slapped him on the butt, "Bert! Maybe you should leave them alone and focus something like that on me instead." Chuck and Sarah just grinned at the other couple and after a moment the rest of the onlookers focus moved away from them. Bert and his companion gave them a short knowing grin and Bert looked at Chuck and said as he winked, "Enjoy the rest of your evening, kiddo, it definitely looks like _I _will." And with that Bert and his companion turned and sauntered off down the walkway holding hands.

Sarah giggled, "That was so cute."

Chuck slightly embarrassed by it all exclaimed, "I completely forgot we weren't the only ones up here." He reached down for his jacket and started to place it again over Sarah's shoulders.

"I don't think I'm going to need that any longer tonight, Chuck" she said, waving her hand in front of her flushed face.

"Me neither", he admitted, so he draped the leather jacket over the wall in front of them instead.

They both turned back toward the view of the city again and each wrapped an arm around one another's waist and clasped their other hands on the wall in front of them. They stood silently for several minutes looking at the city, lost in thought.

Then Chuck his eyes fixed ahead said, "You know, maybe Bert is right."

Sarah turned and looked at him intensely, her eyes searching him and challenging him took look at her.

_Oh, boy, here goes. It's now or never Bartowski_. He turned to her and looked her intently in the eyes, "Sarah, I think it's time for you to come back to our place, our home, and stay with me tonight."

Her eyes were locked on his and didn't waver. There was a hint of something he knew intimately in those eyes mixed with what could only be described as excited curiosity. He never could understand how he was able to look into those eyes and not completely freak out. He amazed himself every time he was able to do it.

"I'd like that Chuck, but I have an appointment in the morning with Dr. Dreyfus," and she looked at him mischievously as she bit her lower lip, "does that mean you're going to let me borrow your car?"

His mouth fell agape in mock incredulousness, "No that means I'm going to drive you to your appointment, but if you behave yourself maybe I'll let you drive me there with you." and then he cocked his head to the side and winked at her, "and your appointment isn't till 9:30, so we should be able to sleep in a bit."

She peered at him for a long time through her eyelashes and it was making him melt.

He gave her a sincere and solemn smile, and turned to her to hold her other hand in his intertwining their fingers as he held it. "Sarah, take it as slow or as fast as you want, but I've been away from you for much too long already and I can't stand it any longer; just stay with me at our apartment tonight. Take a leap of faith and come home, I won't let you down."

As Sarah looked at Chuck she became intensely aware that she was getting lost in those deep hazel eyes of his and a very recent memory sprang forth voiced by a loyal if not slightly reckless friend - _"Are you back at home with Chuckles? And how come you aren't doing something unmentionable with him instead of talking with me right now?" _

_Did I really fall for Chuck that fast? _ Sometimes recklessness has its place.

"Lets go home, Chuck." And then their lips crashed together again, time completely lost, before they finally gathered themselves up to leave.

* * *

**A/N **A teaser from Act 3:

And then the bathroom door opened, "Chuck, are you all right in here? It's been awfully quiet."

He stared at the foggy shower door for a moment and then reality smacked him in the forehead as Sarah's head poked over the top edge of the door…he jumped.

"Come out of there before you turn into a prune."


	4. Act 3

**A/N** 4/20/12 - It's Friday night and Chuck is no longer on. Maybe this will be a reasonable substitute. Get ready to be heart warmed a bit.

I'm still not happy with the way that dialogue has been moving this story forward. I'm chalking it up to inexperience at the moment and just keeping my fingers crossed that it'll start to click for me the more I do it. I am, however, very happy with the overall plot and how the story is coming together and where it is headed. Thanks to those of you who have commented and encouraged me to move ahead with this. I've gained a new appreciation for all the writers here and just how much nerve it takes to stick your neck out and click that 'Add Chapter' button.

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 3**

As they walked into courtyard of Casa Bartowski Chuck could start to see the challenges that were going to have to be addressed in order to protect Sarah from flashing on her past. He'd dodged a bullet at Griffith Park when he was fortunate enough to keep Sarah away from the areas they had been in when Chuck had gone up there a little over a year ago to meet his mother. Sarah and his mother Mary had a rather tense encounter in the playground, each of them pointing a gun at one another with Chuck caught in the middle of it. He was glad that he was able to keep Sarah from flashing on that memory and at the same time it made him feel sad. He had wanted Sarah to regain her lost memories, and to him that meant all of them. Now he had to try to keep her from doing that in order to protect her from the Intersect that was still in her head.

He now had to try to concentrate on creating new memories instead, and avoid the old ones as much as possible, at least for the time being. There were a lot of old memories connected with this place and he was beginning to wonder if bringing Sarah back home might have been a big mistake. One thing was clear to him now. They were both very tired and hopefully the exhaustion would keep both of them from thinking too much about all the things that could make any problems for Sarah here. As they approached the front door he made an effort to place himself between her and the fountain and tried to block it from her view. The fountain, and for that matter, the whole courtyard really had him worried; there were a lot of very intense memories associated with it, some good ones, and some that were not so good.

Thinking about the problem this place posed for Sarah made him realize something he hadn't thought about or maybe he was putting off. At some point between now and her appointment with Dr. Dreyfus in the morning he was going to have to come clean with Sarah and tell her about everyone's concerns about her and the Intersect. He didn't see how it could be avoided any longer and she had a right to know anyway. He just hoped they could get to the bottom of this and get the Ring Intersect out of her head. Then just maybe she could safely get her memories back and they could get on with their life together with one less worry. Being CIA operatives still meant there were a lot of other things to worry about, but he desperately wanted to get rid of this one thing that was weighing so heavily upon them.

As they reached the door he dug into his pants pocket for his keys and said, "Well, here are. Home, sweet, home." Hey fumbled with the keys and dropped them to the ground and when he stooped to pick them up he almost bashed his head into Sarah's. She dodged it, and sent him a sympathetic smile as he fumbled again with the keys and he rose stiffly on his way back up with them. A sheepish look was fixed on his face and the color was rising up his neck.

Sarah sensed the building tension in him and asked, "Chuck, is everything alright? You seem more than just a little nervous."

Chuck fiddled with the keys in his hand looking for the door key before he finally looked up and met Sarah's eyes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good,"…then he stammered, "No, I'm terrified…Sarah, I've been waiting for this moment for over a month, since Quinn took you from me, not a long time in the grand scheme of things, I know…but it's been like an eternity to me, and I didn't even know if this moment would ever come, and I've been so worried about you. I'm sorry, the last thing I want to do is put any pressure on you. I'm just so happy that you're here."

Sarah clasped her hand over the keys that Chuck was holding in his hand and held her other hand up in front of his face. In her hand was a key to the door. "Relax, it's okay, Chuck. I found this hidden in the pocket of my suitcase…along with a picture of us." She slid the key into the lockset, twisted it, and opened the door.

Chuck stared at her and swallowed. He was speechless.

She grabbed his hand and led him into the apartment.

The apartment was filled with reminders of their past life, a past life that was so real just six weeks ago, but one that was now surreal in the wake of recent events. Sarah just pulled him along and led him to the bathroom like she'd been in the apartment a thousand times, which was true enough. When they got into the bathroom, Sarah walked over to the shower and turned on the water. She turned to Chuck and started to undress him starting with his shirt, grabbing the hem of it and pulling it over his head, which was no small feat considering how much taller he was. She reached for his belt buckle and his hands flew to hers and his eyes fixed on hers. She could see the exhaustion written in them.

She smiled up at him, "Chuck, I may not remember this, but I'm sure that we have been here many times before…take it easy, we're going to get you a hot shower so you can relax. It's been a long day for you, you need it."

His expression turned to one of wonder, and he let Sarah help him undress. Sarah checked the water and turned to him trying to maintain eye contact but failing a bit her eyes passed over his 'assets'…_oh, my…_ her pupils instantly dilated. "Get in, I'll be back to check on you in a bit." It was all she could say.

Chuck stepped into the shower and let the water run onto his head as he asked himself what in the name of all that was good had blessed him twice in his life with a woman this extraordinary.

- II -

Sarah stood with her back to the closed bathroom door for a moment and let out a long breath as she reflected on what she had just seen. How could she not have any memory of…well…_that._ She shook her head and wandered around the apartment trying to recollect herself. She slowly pushed the image and the accompanying thoughts it elicited to the back of her mind and her surroundings once again started to come back into focus. To say that the apartments décor was eclectic would have been a major understatement, but curiously she found something very appealing about it. The first thing she did was walk into the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator revealed a carton of eggs, three beers, a couple of cups of yogurt and half a block of cheese. She really couldn't fault Chuck for this given the emotional ringer she had been running him through and all of the work she had come to understand he was currently doing on top of it, and after all, she was currently living out of a hotel room herself. There was coffee and tea in the cupboard, so she filled the kettle that was sitting on the stove and turned on the burner. Turning the corner out of the kitchen to walk down the hall she listened and all she could hear was the running water of the shower. For some reason she expected to hear the sound of Chuck singing or humming in the shower but that was not to be heard.

She went into his bedroom and looked around. This was very familiar to her in spite of the fact that she had recently been here since Nicholas Quinn had manipulated her into thinking Chuck was an enemy to be killed. The thought disturbed her greatly that she could be so easily deceived by a man she didn't know. It had caused her to question almost everything in her life over the last month. It created a constant question in her mind about what was real and what was not. She hated Quinn for that; for what he had done to her. But she was beginning to see over the last couple of weeks who could and should be trusted, and it was becoming starkly obvious that it was Chuck and his close circle of work associates, his friends, and his family. One of the things that stood out so glaringly in her mind was that Chuck and General Beckman were now on a first name basis, it just boggled her mind that Chuck could have such an effect on Beckman to cause her to break protocol like that. The obvious conclusion was that Chuck and Diane Beckman had become close friends…it was just too much to absorb.

She wandered around Chuck's bedroom and opened the closet. There, on one side of the closet, were clothes that could only be hers as they fit her fashion tastes perfectly. It surprised her seeing all of them hanging there like that given her proclivity for living out of a suitcase. Her curiosity sparked, she moved to the dresser and opened the drawers and several of them were full of her clothes and a few that had obviously been Chucks at one time. She pulled a Stanford t-shirt out of the drawer and tossed it onto the bed. Next she found a pair of dark gray boy shorts and threw them on top of the t-shirt. Curiously there was a pair of slipper sandals under the right side of the bed. She realized as she looked around that Chuck hadn't changed a thing about what was hers in the room. This was her bedroom too.

After twenty minutes with the hot water coming down on him Chuck was finally starting to feel human again. All of the sudden he remembered how he had gotten here in the shower and he started to wonder if it was all just an elaborate delusion concocted by his mind to protect him from the ugly realities he had been facing the last few weeks.

And then the bathroom door opened, "Chuck, are you all right in here? It's been awfully quiet."

He stared at the foggy shower door for a moment and then reality smacked him in the forehead as Sarah's head poked over the top edge of the door…he jumped.

"Come out of there before you turn into a prune."

Stunned, he looked on as she opened the door and reached in and turned the water off, and then Sarah held out a towel for him. As she held the open towel out in front of her she peaked over the top of it and gave him an appraising and satisfied look. He looked at her goggle eyed, but it was apparent to him even as tired as he was that she liked what she saw, and it caused him to relax.

All he could say was a glassy eyed, "Thanks babe", as he accepted the towel and started to dry his hair vigorously with it. Then he finally noticed her standing there leaning against the sink with a huge smile on her face, and she was wearing the Stanford t-shirt she had appropriated from him years ago. Below the hem of the large t-shirt was nothing but leg. His face broke into a broad grin even as he realized he was standing stark naked in front of her, and it surprised him that he wasn't overcome with a sudden fit of modesty. After a moment he came to the conclusion he was just too tired to care and that this was what he was used to with Sarah anyway even if their current situation was far from normal. It _felt_ normal, and a flood of relief washed over him. He shrugged it all off and wrapped the towel around himself as he stepped out of the shower. "You know, I'm going to have to do this for you sometime now." he proclaimed.

She smiled at him and said, "MmHmm, I'm looking forward to that." Then after a few seconds passed, "I'm brewing some tea, why don't you come in the kitchen after you put something on…or come as you are if you want ", and she winked at him as she strode from the bathroom in her bare feet.

- III -

Chuck walked into the kitchen to find Sarah standing at the counter dipping a teabag into one of two large mugs. She looked up at him and smiled, "I thought a hot cup of herbal tea might be nice before bed." She handed him one of the mugs and turned and leaned against the counter admiring him standing there in a pair of boxers as he was blowing onto the top of the hot liquid in the mug. _We've definitely been here before._

He moved to the counter across from her and sipped his tea. "This is probably going to knock me out," the fatigue showing in his voice.

"That was the general idea. I think we could both use a good nights rest", she said as she studied him over the top of her mug. "Why don't we go into the living room to drink this?"

Chuck balked as he turned to look into the living area, so many pictures and other links to the past in that room, and Sarah caught the small but anxious frown that shown on his face.

"Chuck, what's wrong? Why the sudden look of distress? Talk to me." She watched him looking for words with that troubled expression on his face, and she waited. She was starting to feel a little more than concerned herself.

Finally, "Sarah, I had a meeting with Diane Beckman and my sister Ellie today. I told them about what happened to you at the restaurant on Saturday night." He paused as he saw her flush a bit and her eyes widened slightly as she stared at him

"Go on…", she encouraged.

"Sarah, please try to stay calm, I don't want to get you upset, but I have to tell you something…" She could see that whatever it was it was really eating away at him. "Sarah, Ellie thinks you might still have the unstable Ring Intersect in you," his distressed tone alarmed her.

"I've been wondering about that," she said with a sigh. Worry was etched on the man's face across from her.

"What exactly happened to you the other night? It looked to me like you had flashed…it really scared me." He felt he was treading on very dangerous ground here. Part of him didn't want her to be thinking about this at all.

"Chuck, when I cracked open the fortune cookie I had a memory return to me. It was a memory of you and I talking about my new assignment once you were released from our protective detail…and some very intense emotions, and an interrupted kiss…and then anger and frustration that the kiss had been interrupted. The memory ran up on me so fast it made my head hurt."

"I could see it. Ellie is concerned that these returning memories are interacting with the Intersect in a negative way. She told me that Quinn used some sort of device to torture you and suppress your memories. Have you had any more episodes like this?"

Her face reflected a painful memory and she nodded to him; "I went back to our house Sunday morning. You know, the one you told me we were going to buy? I looked at the carving on the passage frame and the memory of the night we put it there returned again, but this time it was very painful, it felt like I _was_ being tortured. Why would such a wonderful memory feel like torture?"

He thought about it for a moment; "Probably because you weren't supposed to remember it. Whatever Quinn used on you is causing the Intersect to continue to try to forcefully suppress your memories. We need to try to keep this from happening until we can find a way to stop it from doing that."

"Is that why you became so agitated when we got here? Why you don't want to go into the living room?"

"Yes…we're concerned that these flashes could be associative. I didn't think about it until we walked up to the apartment, and then it occurred to me what sort of trouble this place could cause for you because of all the memories associated with it. I'm not supposed to let you out of my sight, Sarah. And I should have dragged you into the shower with me to protect you from being out here alone with all of these things around that could cause you pain and maybe do possible harm to you. I shouldn't have brought you here."

She looked pensively at him for a moment, and then she set her mug down and took his mug from him and set it on the counter next to him. Then she embraced him. "I've been having these headaches lately, and very strange dreams and nightmares. What you're telling me explains a lot now that I think about it", she said, as she looked up at him, "And, yes, you _should_ have dragged me into the shower with you," she added with a sparkle now in her eye, and then she continued, "So now I'm the one with a protective detail? It had to be very difficult for you to have to push so hard to get us here like this. It's not your style is it? I guess the shoe is on the other foot now."

"Doing what I had to do was easy. Both of us have always had strong overriding motives for protecting each other; it's been that way since almost day one. But tonight I was terrified that you wouldn't let me close enough to you to protect you. I didn't want to have to force the situation."

"Well, I guess I should be glad that I didn't place you in a position that would have made you have to pull official rank on me, that might have been a little uncomfortable for the both of us." She smiled reassuringly at him and then looked at him thoughtfully as if trying to decide what to do next. Finally she said, "It's late, and I have an appointment with Dr. Leo in the morning. It's obvious we're both beat, so let's go to bed and talk about this in the morning."

"I'm more than ready for that," he agreed, the exhaustion evident in his voice. He hugged her tightly for a moment and then led her to the bedroom with his arm around her waist.

- IV -

Chuck slowly became aware of the gray early morning light in the room. And then he noticed her hand on top of his idly stroking his fingers. It tickled his memory the way that they were laying there together, their hands caressing each other on top of the blanket. Overcome by exhaustion, they had both fallen asleep almost the instant their heads hit the pillows the night before, and they had slept fitfully. Now as he blinked off the sleep he looked at the blond hair on the pillow next to his and luxuriated in it with a smile. He let his fingers entwine in hers and as he did Sarah turned to face him and their eyes locked. She twisted around and inched closer as they looked into each other's eyes like they had put one another under a spell.

They suddenly assailed each other in a wild and frantic kiss. Sarah's arms wrapped around Chuck's neck, her fingers tangled in his dark brown curls as his arms wrapped around her body, and then one of his hands moved up her side causing Sarah's breath to catch as he did so, and then it came up caressing over her breast and as it continued up and swept through her hair he then held her head in his hands. They finally came up for air still spell bound by each other.

The covers flew explosively off of the bed, undergarments flew to the floor, and they were almost instantly skin-on-skin wrapped up in each other. Chucks lips went to base of Sarah's neck above her collar bone, her breath hitched, and she let out a soft moan as his lips touched her and she opened up beneath him and wrapped herself around him. Their bodies roamed over each other and the bed with easy familiarity, but there was also a sense of new discovery in the way they made love and it was wondrous and exhilarating the way they explored each other without any hesitation as they moved together in perfect synch. The bed shuddered several times under them and the moans and the gasps of their catching breath reverberated off of the bedroom walls.

A long while later they were laying in each others arms with the top sheet tangled around their feet, basking in the glow of each other. _I'm so glad we rested up for that._

And then the Morgan door flew open. "Chuck! Wake up! We've got breakfast cook-Whoa! Brain stamp! Aaagh! My eyes! Sorry! Sorry! I'll be going now!" Morgan's hand flew up to his eyes as he backed away from the window.

They scrambled to pull the sheets up in a flurry of motion as their faces started to turn red. Sarah was the first to find her voice, "Morgan! Morgan, it's okay, come back here! We're decent now, what is it?" Chuck looked at her like she had lost her mind, and she answered the look with smirk as she bit her lower lip and shrugged.

Morgan crept back up to the window, his face highlighted with embarrassment and apology. Sarah and Chuck were now sitting on the bed with the sheets pulled up under their armpits. "I am so sorry." And then a huge smile slowly came onto his face. "In spite of the fact that I now have an image of the two of you imprinted on my brain that I will never be able to get rid of, may I now say just how happy I am to see the two of you together like this?"

Chuck and Sarah both turned up a tight lipped smile and stared at him, and then in chorus their expressions wordlessly asked, "And?…"

"Oh…right! Alex and I are both taking the day off and we're starting some breakfast. Would you, the both of you, like to come over and join us?"

Chuck and Sarah exchanged inquiring glances at each other, both of them apparently mentally considering the contents of the refrigerator at the same time, and they shrugged after they both glanced at the clock, "Sure", Chuck said, "Why not? Just give us a little time to get to get showered, okay?"

"Absolutely! We'll see you in a bit!" and Morgan scurried away… "Alex! There's going to be four of us!"

Chuck looked at Sarah, gave her a brief Bartowski eyebrow dance and grinned, "I'll just take a very brief shower, and then the bathroom is all yours. Why don't you relax here, I'll just be a couple of minutes" and he left the room before she could say a thing, her focus diverted to his butt as he made for the door. An impish grin grew on her face.

After turning on the water in the shower Chuck crossed the bathroom to brush his teeth. That completed, he adjusted the water temperature and stepped in the shower. Not two seconds later the bathroom door opened and he could hear the water running in the sink. He shrugged to himself as the water in the sink stopped running and he reached down to grab the bottle of shampoo from the edge of the shower. The shower door came open and there he was looking up at Sarah as she quickly stepped in and took the bottle from his hand before he dropped it.

"Remember, you're not supposed to let me out of your sight", she admonished with a twinkle in her eye.

- V -

"Hey you two, thanks for a very enjoyable breakfast, that really hit the spot" Chuck circled his hand over his belly as he puffed out his cheeks and held his eyes wide, "I'm not eating another thing until dinner." And he cast a satisfied glance at Sarah who was sitting next to him at the table. She returned his look in kind.

"Yes, thank you, that was delightful" Sarah added to the chorus.

"Breakfast is our favorite meal, but we rarely have time to make it here at home", called Alex from the kitchen; "Life has been so busy for us lately it's been hard to find the time to make a nice breakfast even on the weekends."

"We might be able to do this more often if Chuck wasn't such a slave driver," Morgan declared as he cleared the dishes from the table.

Chuck muttered, "Yeah, I'm such a slave driver. Who was it that unilaterally decided to take the day off again?"

"Hey, At least I let Nikki know what we were up to this morning, I'll bet you didn't even think to call her, buddy boy", a devious smile was pasted on Morgan's face. "I also invited her to join us but she begged off and said she needed to get an early start today. She was already at the office when I called her at 6:30."

Chuck looked at Morgan with curious astonishment, "Why on earth did you call her at 6:30 in the morning? Where is your sense of propriety? And why was she already at the office that early?"

"Propriety? Me? C'mon buddy, Alex has managed to pound _some_ sense into me, but not that much."

"You can say that again!" shouted Alex from the kitchen.

Sara had gotten up from the table and joined Alex at the sink with some dishes in her hand. She leaned over to Alex and whispered, "Who is Nikki?"

Alex shot her a knowing look as she glanced over her shoulder at the guys in the dining area and whispered back, "Ask me that again later," followed by a subtle grin.

"I'll have to make sure I get to explain that one first myself," Chuck said as Alex and Sarah looked over at him in surprise. He returned a tight-lipped smile and continued to Morgan, "Did Nikki say why she was at the office so early?"

"Something about a busy day filled with computer vendors, secret agents, and arms merchants. She was being very cryptic about it."

"Well, O.K." replied Chuck, "Maybe it's about time we got on the ball and hired some more people, I don't want her to burn out on us."

"I do not think that that is even remotely possible", Morgan quickly answered.

Just then Chuck's cell phone started to vibrate and softly play the theme song from the 'Mission Impossible' TV series. When he looked at it he saw John Casey's hardass visage on the screen. Intriguingly, the call showed on the display as not being secure, probably, Chuck surmised, because a secure call would have been immediately tagged, logged, and tracked by the NSA's Echelon system. Casey was in spy mode. "John, how have you been?"

Casey got immediately to the point in his usual gruff manner, and under the circumstances it was music to Chuck's ears, "Someone named Nikki said it was very important that I call you. We thought we were totally off grid for at least a few more weeks, not even Beckman's been able to find us, although we did run into Sarah's loose cannon friend, Carina, last week," he snarled, "Whoever this Nikki person is, she is obviously very good at what she does."

"I'll make sure I pass the compliment along to her Casey, she works for me. Sorry to interrupt you and Gertrude's sabbatical, but this _is_ important. I wouldn't have done it, otherwise."

"*HuMM* It better be _damned_ important, _Chuck_." He emphasized Chuck's name in a very acidic manner.

"John, unfortunately I can't discuss it right now. Do me a huge favor and call the general as soon as possible on an encrypted line and she'll give you a full briefing."

"*HMn*, so Beckman is working for _you _now, numbnuts?"

Chuck sighed, "Just call her, Casey, then you'll know how important this is."

Casey's voice then softened slightly as Chuck heard a reproaching feminine voice in the background, "Okay, Bartowski, have it your way…Chuck, thanks for getting the CIA to call their dogs off of Gertrude. Constantly having to stay two steps ahead of those jerks was really starting to piss me off."

"Don't mention it Casey, any friend of yours is a friend of mine."

"*Hngmm*"

Everyone in the room had been listening intently to this one-sided conversation and finally Alex chimed in, "Is that my dad? I want to talk to him, Chuck, don't you let him hang up on you."

Chuck looked soberly at her and saw a graceful exit, "Casey, your daughter is here and she wants to talk to you. I'm handing the phone to her now, hang up at your own peril." He immediately handed the phone to Alex.

"Dad!" Alex offered exuberantly, "How have you been?" a pause ensued, then, "Oh, good, we were starting to worry about you…"

Chuck let out his held breath with a whoosh, and walked over to Sarah and let his forehead settle onto her shoulder with a groan, "I'm a dead man." Sarah reached up and patted him on the neck and smiled.

- VI -

"So, who is Nikki?" Sarah asked with an enquiring eye as they were exiting the 210 freeway in route to her appointment with Dr. Leo Dreyfus.

"Nikki is our new office manager, slash computer guru, slash private investigator, slash human resources director, slash office psychologist, and probably several other amazing things we haven't discovered yet. She's basically running our new offices in Pasadena right now while we're getting them online, and she's very good at everything she does." The somewhat gushing appraisal caused a slightly defensive look to cross his face as he said it.

"So is Nikki pretty too?" Sarah asked with a sideways glance and a look of mirth on her face. She was driving Chuck's car this morning and she kept her eyes front, glued to the road.

Chuck looked at her closely and his eyes narrowed, "Are Alex and you communicating telepathically or something?"

She laughed, "No but I watched Morgan and you when you two were talking about her. Both of you need to be a little more careful about that."

He studied Sarah's face carefully as he considered what she'd said, "Yes, Nikki looks pretty amazing too, but I assure you, we only have honorable thoughts about Nikki," he said defensively, "Well, I probably should only speak for myself. And speaking for myself, you have absolutely nothing to worry about, super amazing, ninja spy-girl, Sarah Walker."

Sarah laughed, "Flattery will get you everywhere," she replied as she swiftly turned into the underground parking area at the CIA/NSA annex offices located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Then belatedly she realized that Chuck had used her maiden name, and curiously it had stung a bit to hear it.

The CIA/NSA annex here at JPL had been established by the Directorate of Science and Technology years ago for technology liaison purposes when JPL was involved heavily with the KH-11 spy satellite project and because the secure nature of the lab made it a natural fit owing to the CIA's and the NSA's clandestine missions. It had turned out to be very convenient for Chuck because his new offices were located just a few miles away on Colorado Blvd. He frequently attended meetings here and the annex was equipped for tactical missions, which reduced infrastructure requirements at his own offices even though there was a small group of NSA and CIA agents and support employees moving into offices on the lower floor of his office building.

Sarah pulled the Lotus into a spot close to the elevator. They stepped into the elevator and as the door closed Sarah looked up at their reflection in the mirrored elevator ceiling and let out a large sigh. Chuck looked up at her and watching their reflection as he did so he reached out and grabbed her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "Relax, you're going to be fine."

Then he thought of the last time he had been here with Sarah when he was having Intersect related dream problems and the basket case he had been at the time because he'd been ordered to see a Psychiatrist. He was secretly glad that Sarah didn't appear to remember that right now. They entered the reception area to Dr. Dreyfus' offices and signed in while greeting the doctor's assistant. A moment later Leo Dreyfus strode into the room and welcomed them, "Chuck and Sarah, it's very nice to see you, welcome back to my inner sanctum."

'It's good to see you too, Doc", Chuck lied. He really hated coming here.

Leo gave them a sympathetic smile, "I'll let you have that one lie, Chuck. Just try not to make a habit of it, alright?" he said with an even toned mix of seriousness and humor. And then he shifted his gaze to Sarah.

"How have you been Sarah?"

"About as good as anyone who has lost five years of their memories can be, I suppose. I'm learning to cope with it", she responded ruefully.

He looked thoughtfully at her for a moment, "Well young lady, take heart in the fact that many people have gone before you with similar experiences, and most of them made it through the trial stronger at the end of it. Shall we go into my office?"

Chuck placed his hand on Sarah's back and leaned in to give her a quick kiss, "I'll be waiting out here. See you in a bit." Leo mentally noted the kiss as Sarah nodded in reply to Chuck and walked into the doctor's office.

And Chuck sat down to wait. Presently he pulled out his phone and scrolled his contact list.

- VII -

"Carmichael Industries, this is Nikki, secure, may I help you?"

"Hi Nikki, it's Chuck."

"Hi boss, did agent Casey call you? I finally tracked him down in Zurich last night. He sure is a gruff…_individual_."

"HA! Welcome to my world. Can you believe we were partners for five years?"

"Oh, lucky you", She laughed, "He didn't sound too happy that I found him. He mumbled something about shooting the hotel desk manager, and he sounded strangely serious. I hope I didn't get someone hurt."

"Don't worry, Nikki, I doubt that Casey will hurt anyone over this sort of thing." _I hope. _"He did sound very impressed that you were able to find him, though. I told him I'd pass along my compliments to you."

"Thanks, boss, I'm just doing what you hired me to do."

"Well, you're doing it very well." He said sincerely.

"I'm not going to have to watch my back when mister Casey gets into town am I?"

"Doubtful, I think you've earned his respect."

"I'll believe that when I see it." She quickly changed the subject, "Chuck, I received a video briefing this morning from General Beckman's adjutant. He brought me fully up to speed on the current situation and he also wanted me to let you know that they have some new data on the possible whereabouts of Nicholas Quinn's safehouse. They have a ground team working on it right now and he wanted you to know they'll notify you the minute they have something. You've been asked to be there to help process the target once they have the location nailed down."

"That is good news, Nikki, have you been briefed on the current assignment that's keeping me out of the office right now?" He wasn't sure how else to pose this question.

"Yes, Chuck. I've been fully briefed about _all _of it. How is Sarah?"

"She's doing O.K. I'll just assume you know where we are right now. Nikki, if I get a call to help secure Quinn's safehouse I may need some help from you, I not supposed to leave Sarah unsupervised right now."

"I understand, Chuck. I'll keep myself available to help you if I'm needed. I'd like to meet Sarah anyway, although the circumstances could certainly be better."

"Thanks..", Chuck's phone buzzed with a text notification. "Sorry, Nikki I need to put you on hold a minute" , and he pulled up the text:

_Report to the annex operations center without delay – Beckman _

"No, no, no, no, no…"

"…Sorry about that, I'm back", he said as he got up to leave, "Nikki we've got a situation. I just received a text from General Beckman. I need Morgan or you to get over here to Dr. Dreyfus' office right away, whoever can get here quickest. If you have to, get one of the guys downstairs to keep an eye on the contractors for you. They just called me upstairs to the operations center here and Sarah will be out in about forty minutes. Why don't you take her back and show her the new office, and don't take no for an answer. And, Nikki, don't let her out of your sight."

"Relax boss, don't you worry about Sarah, we'll take care of it."

"Right now I'm mostly fearing for Morgan's life if he shows up to pick up Sarah."

"Understood boss, I'll handle it. I'm closer anyways. I'll have Morgan watch the office."

"Oh, this is so not awesome."

- VIII -

"So, I'm not supposed to remember any of the last missing five years of my life for the time being?" Sarah asked with frustration.

"Sarah, unfortunately, that is exactly what you're going to have to do for a while." Leo Dreyfus replied evenly with a hint of sympathy in his voice.

"Doctor, I'm married to Chuck and I have no memory of it. And now I'm being told not to remember it." The doctor's eyes were drawn to Sarah's wringing hands. She was stroking the ring finger of her left hand where her wedding bands were supposed to be. He quickly scribbled something on his note pad.

Sarah continued apparently oblivious to what her hands were doing, "When my friends and work associates first started telling me about these last five years I couldn't believe it was even possible, I _refused_ to believe it was possible. All I wanted to do was escape back into my work, to not let anyone even tell me what I once had."

"Running away from your life isn't the answer", he replied, "And refusing to face reality is a strong argument for suspending an agent from active duty."

"I know that doctor, and I'm trying to accept it, but the last five years I was being told about just didn't seem real to me. I just didn't see how I could have become the person people are describing."

"Do you believe that you can't change, or that someone in your life can't be a catalyst for change? _Didn't _seem real? Has something happened to change your perception?"

She stopped the hand wringing and looked circumspectly at the doctor, as she appeared to be searching for an answer to his questions, finally, "Yes, I think a person can change. But I didn't think that cold, hard, CIA operative Sarah Walker could ever change that much. Chuck started to change that perception I had of myself from almost the moment Nicholas Quinn sent me to kill him. The very idea that he could do that to me…scared me."

"So you avoided him."

"Yes. I did at first. I was so overcome with anger because of what Quinn had done to me. That he had ruined my life. But at the same time I didn't want to believe what I was told about the life I had. Avoiding Chuck made it easier to build a wall around myself. I have a history of that."

"Yes, you do."

"You should know," she continued "over the last month or so, especially the last few days, Chuck, and his family and friends – and my friends - have almost beaten that wall down…and I've started to remember things. But when the memories return it is causing painful headaches. I still want them back in spite of the pain they are causing. I understand now how I originally fell for Chuck, and it makes me want those memories even more no matter how much it hurts to get them back. Now I'm being told to try to not remember those memories. How am I supposed to move forward this way?"

The doctor was writing in his notebook as she spoke, but now he stopped and looked intently at her, "Isn't knowing what you know right now enough for now? I suggest that you build something new on top of that… won't that leave you in a better and stronger position once we solve this?"

Sarah allowed a second of fear to cross her face, "_Can_ we solve this?"

"We're working on it. Chuck's sister is heading the research team and she'll be here the day after tomorrow. She's bringing a governor similar to the one Chuck wears for you to try. In the mean time we'll be conducting some additional MRI's and PET scans to add to the ones you had last month."

Dr. Dreyfus looked at Sarah for a long moment as if he was trying to settle an internal conflict of his own. "I'm going to share something with you that I probably shouldn't, because there is some danger involved in telling you about your past, and frankly it also flies in the face of clinical dogma. It could also be viewed as a breech of doctor/patient confidentiality… but, since Chuck is your husband..."

He hesitated for a moment, and then continued, " Not very long ago Chuck was also having problems with the Intersect. The Intersect was causing vivid and disturbing dreams and he was acting on them. We believed the Intersect was overwhelming his mind. But a young woman, his partner, came to me at my house one night and fought for Chuck. She told me that she loved him, that she believed him when almost no one else would, and that she wanted to help him in any way that she could."

Sarah looked up suddenly from her hands to Dr. Dreyfus, realizing who he was talking about.

"Your actions and your commitment to him probably ended up saving Chuck's life that night. Chuck and other people who care about you are trying to do much the same for you right now."

Sarah was abruptly reminded of her own vivid dreams and nightmares of the last few weeks, and how she had kept them to herself and not talked to Chuck about them even though he had been in almost all of them. _Should I talk about this now?_

"Lets continue this on Friday", Leo said, as he saw a look of recognition growing on Sarah's face. "Right now concentrate on the here and now Sarah, I am confident the rest will come with time, and with the help of many people who care about you."

- IX -

As soon as Chuck exited the elevator on the fourth floor of the building where the operations center was located he encountered a half dozen CIA and NSA agents in tactical gear trotting towards the door. The lead agent skidded to a stop and blurted out, "Chief Carmichael I presume?" Chuck quickly nodded, then the agent continued, "Tony Stone, sir, we've got a twenty on the tango you've been tracking sir, see the Station Chief and collect your gear, transport will be waiting for you on the roof." _The roof? _Chuck just nodded again and hustled down the hallway towards the briefing room.

He rounded the corner into the briefing room to encounter a flurry of activity. A large overhead monitor was displaying what looked like a real time thermal satellite image of a building that appeared to be a house in a Mark 1 Mod Zero part of a residential area in anywhere L.A. Judging from the IR image the house currently looked empty, but there were two vehicles parked in front of it with hot engine hoods and men were getting out of them.

Agents in tactical uniforms were hustling around the room collecting and strapping on various weapons and gear and exchanging quick clipped comments with each other. Recognizing the imposing physique of Station Chief Vincent Oddo, Chuck quickly made his way across the room to talk to the man whose presence could easily challenge John Casey's. Vincent had about twenty pounds on Casey, and he was 100% muscle on a dark olive complexioned frame topped with a chrome domed square jawed head. He looked like Agent 47 from the classic Hitman video game…on steroids.

"Chuck!" Oddo motioned him over as he caught his eye and started to move briskly towards him, "Sorry, we don't have any time for pleasantries", he said as he accepted a black duffle from a colleague and handed it to Chuck., "We have a twenty on the safehouse but it looks like someone else does too, and they've got a head start on us. I'll fill you in on the chopper ride." He gave Chuck a wicked grin, "I hope you still remember how to Fast Rope, that's how close we're cutting it."

* * *

**A/N **Reviews are always appreciated. Good or bad, tell me what you are thinking.


	5. Act 4

**A/N** 4/27/12 - Happy Friday, and welcome to Act 4

Many things are starting to happen at once with this story, and it's creating challenges for this novice plot builder. A Buymoria moment will even eventually show up a few Acts down the road as things heat up a bit.

**I don't own Chuck**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 4**

Two UH-60M Blackhawk helicopters lifted off from the twin rooftop helipads of the CIA/NSA annex at JPL and sped away at low level. Three black Chevrolet Suburbans could be seen speeding down the access road and out the entrance guardhouse gate below them. In one of the two helicopters Station Chief Charles Carmichael was hastily scrambling into a black nomex flight suit and donning a ballistic tactical vest. He briefly checked a small tablet computer stored in one of the rear vest pockets and then pulled the tranq pistol from the vest's chest mounted holster and checked to make sure a dart was in battery and that the gun's safety was engaged.

Station Chief Vincent Oddo looked at him disapprovingly, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have one of my extra Sig's? Those damned tranq darts don't work instantaneously, you know."

Chuck shook his head at him with a serious look on his face, "I'll take my chances. Besides, sometimes bullets don't work very quickly either and I'd rather not have someone's death on my conscience, especially a slow and agonizing one."

Oddo frowned at him in reply.

As Chuck bent over to pull up the side zippers on his tactical boots, Oddo reached into the duffle at his feet and pulled out a Colt Mustang pistol that was holstered in condition one in a black nylon ankle holster. He held it out to Chuck, "Humor me, I'd rather not be the guy who had Charles Carmichael get killed on his watch."

Chuck frowned back at Oddo, but accepted the handgun and strapped it to the ankle of his left boot. "I'm going to try my darndest to forget this thing is here, Vincent."

"Suit yourself." Oddo looked pointedly at the agent sitting next to Chuck, shot him a hand signal, and pointed at Chuck. _Stack on him. _The agent nodded back.

Chuck caught it and gave Oddo an annoyed look. "I can take care of myself."

"Glad to hear it, but I don't see the rest of your regular team here. You're going to have to put up with Johnny and me on this one."

Chuck looked over at the agent who was wearing a tight grin sitting next to him. "John. John Rogers." the agent said matter-of-factly.

"Oh, that's just great, another John", he exclaimed as he noted that the guy was easily as big as Casey too.

Oddo grinned at Chuck then said, "Overhead surveillance shows that bogies are now at the target house. Our teams will Fast Rope a half a block away and approach from the alley. We'll be over the DZ in about…" He looked forward at the pilot who turned to him and held up a thumb and two fingers, "…three minutes." Oddo pulled his Thompson Poseidon suppressed Sig P220 pistol from his tactical thigh holster, checked it, and quickly re-holstered it. "Put on your game face gentleman, this is where the fun begins."

They all pulled on their hard knuckled tactical gloves, and Chuck cast a look at the 40mm rope hanging from the stanchion above the helicopter door. He swallowed. _Oh, boy, this is going to be fun._

He looked at Oddo who gave him a thumbs-up and a grin. "Right behind me, Chuck, O.K.?"

Chuck nodded vigorously back, a look of wide-eyed excitement and determination on his face, and he swallowed again, hard.

About two minutes later the Blackhawks swooped down low between the houses on the upper middle class residential street below and flew down the street, their rotor blades barely clearing the tops of trees and power lines along the sides. They were coming in behind the target on the street just behind it, and they weren't taking their time about it either. Thankfully the street was quiet on this Tuesday mid-morning. Abruptly, the tail of the helicopter dropped and the chopper slowed promptly to a hover about twenty five feet over the street below. Oddo rose from his seat and grabbed the coiled rope on the floor; another team member did the same at the opposite door. They both nodded to each other and tossed the ropes out the doors to the street. As the ropes hit the ground both men were on them and sliding down. Chuck immediately reached out and grabbed the rope. He could briefly feel agent Roger's hand on the drag handle of his vest as his feet then reached out to grab the rope by the insteps. And then the next thing he knew he was on the ground and running to the side of the street to join up with Oddo. _That was anti-climactic._

In a matter of seconds the helicopters pivoted and retreated back up the street from the direction they had approached, staying low to mask their sound with the buildings and the trees. Oddo looked at all of them and then turned and swung an upturned hand with two fingers raised back and forth next to his head. They then trotted down the alley way between the houses with large yards in a column of six. Another team of eight men from the other Blackhawk was about thirty paces behind them. Across the street a woman was staring out of her front window in disbelief.

A minute later they were behind the target house. Oddo consulted a tablet in his hand verifying that this was the correct house from a satellite image. He then raised a camera scope above the top of the backyard fence and checked for lookouts in the yard and at the windows. Satisfied by what he saw, he hand signaled two men to approach the side windows as he slid the latch on the gate and slowly let it swing half way open. The two men scurried toward the windows and set up below them. Presently the man toward the front of the house made a hand signal and held up four fingers, the other man at the window near the rear of the house repeated the signal and held up a hand with two fingers and an outstretched thumb. There were seven armed bad guys in the building. The man at the window closest to them signaled the O.K. for them to approach.

Oddo sent one team up the side of the house to the front corner and the other to the back door. He, with Chuck and Rogers took up the rear of the group headed toward the back door. The lead man of their team had a Benelli M4 tactical shotgun and he took up position near the hinges of the backdoor with the rest of the team stacked up closely behind him. Oddo crept over to the corner of the building, looked around and gave a couple of hand signals to the other team and the men below the windows, he then returned to the stack in front of Chuck and un-holstered his suppressed Sig Sauer and held it at low-ready. Agent Rogers was right behind Chuck with his suppressed pistol drawn at ready position sul. Chuck drew his tranq gun and did the same; his heart was beating loudly in his ears. Then he heard a voice whisper into his earpiece "All other rooms are clear."

Oddo nodded imperceptibly to no one in particular and reached for a button on his shoulder mounted tactical radio with his off-hand. Chuck heard two beeps in his earpiece, then about two seconds later another beep. Breaking glass could be heard from the side of the house as the two men at the windows threw flashbang grenades through the windows into the adjacent rooms. Then, **Boom!** **Boom!** The shotgun wielding man at the door destroyed the hinges with rapid shots high then low and then swiftly kicked the door right between the hinges and sent it flying into the house as he sidestepped across the doorway facing out with his Benelli at ready-high. **BOOM!** **BOOM!** The flashbangs exploded and the flash and concussion reached out through the open doorway. The two men behind the door breacher burst through the doorway, one sliding into the room low on one side of the door on one knee, his team mate stepping in high on the other side of the door. They simultaneously shouted the words "FEDERAL AGENTS!" as they crossed the threshold.

Similar commotion could be heard from the front of the house. The man with the shotgun was immediately behind the other two agents moving to cover the middle angle as Oddo moved in closely behind him with Chuck and agent Rogers closely on his tail. Suppressed gunshots and shouting could be heard from the front of the house. Before Chuck even made it to the doorway there was the rapid staccato metallic pop of suppressed automatic pistols followed by the sound of four empty cartridge casings bouncing on the floor tile. He heard, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" shouted from the room, and as he finally rounded the corner of the door his eyes fell on a man in a black leather jacket on his knees with his pistol pointed to the ceiling and a wide eyed look of terror on his face. As he looked at the man he flashed. On both sides of the man lay two large, lifeless, similarly dressed men, one with a handgun and the other with a MAC-10 submachine gun clenched in their dead hands. Both men had been expertly double-tapped in the head. The entry agents quickly secured the weapons as the breaching man with the shotgun leveled his weapon on the man that was on his knees. In a matter of seconds the enemy agent was disarmed and on his stomach wearing zip tie cuffs behind his back.

It was all over in about in about ten seconds. Only two enemy agents had survived the very one-sided shootout. A minute later as Chuck watched out the living room window, three black Chevy Suburban's pulled up out front and agents started to pour out. After Chuck took a few more seconds to mentally process most of what had just happened he walked over to agent Oddo. "These men are Fulcrum operatives."

Oddo's eyes narrowed and he looked at him skeptically, "I thought Fulcrum was destroyed three years ago. How do you know these guys are Fulcrum?"

"Trust me", Chuck replied, "They're Fulcrum. Get their pictures off to Langley, they'll confirm it."

Oddo looked at one of his team members, "You heard the man, get pictures of all these guys. And get the prisoners back to base and lockdown, we'll interrogate them later." The agent nodded and motioned two others to help him as they set themselves directly to the assigned task. "O.K. gentleman" Oddo, added loudly, "Lets start to turn this place upside down."

As the NSA agents looked around the room it became very apparent that the men they had interrupted here had much more in mind than just a search of the building.

- II -

Sarah walked out of Dr Dreyfus' office into the reception area. Chuck was gone. Instead a young dark haired woman rose quickly from one of the waiting room chairs. "Mrs. Bartowski? I'm Ni-"

"Where's Chuck?" Sarah asked, cutting her off pointedly with an alarmed look growing on her face. Then her expression rapidly changed and her jaw dropped slightly as she did a startled double take at the face of the woman standing in front of her. Wow, the resemblance was uncanny. Aside from the very dark almost jet black hair that didn't quite reach her shoulders and a little darker complexion, Sarah could have sworn she was looking in a mirror. It was positively spooky. Though, below the shoulders she saw the resemblance disappeared, as she looked at the woman in her short skirt with silk top and business jacket. She looked rather voluptuous and and she was a couple of inches shorter than her. Sarah checked herself when she realized she might be lingering a bit and fought off a slight blush.

Nikki smiled coyly with her hands clasped in front of her as Chuck Bartowskis's wife was studying her. She had seen pictures and videos of Sarah and knew that this first meeting might be a little different than most introductions. And it definitely was. "I'm Nikki Lawson, Chuck's office manager", she rejoined, and she showed Sarah her Carmichael Industries security badge hanging around her neck. "Is it all right if I call you Mrs. Bartowski? Chuck was called away for an…emergency? He asked me to meet you here and I never thought to ask him how you preferred to be addressed."

Sarah snapped out of it. "Um…yes, Mrs. Bartowski is fine, but please, call me Sarah, Ms. Lawson."

"O.K., Sarah" Nikki replied, "Call me Nikki then. I'm sorry we had to meet under circumstances like this. Chuck asked that I pick you up and take back to our new offices to show you around until he was done."

"Until he is done? What _sort_ of an emergency was Chuck called away on, Nikki?"

"All I know right now is that General Beckman texted him and he called me and said he had to go upstairs to the operations center right away. Once we get to the office I can get more information for us."

"Oh, General Beckman, say no more." Sarah thought for a few seconds about Nikki's suggestion to go back to the new offices and she was curious to see them, but it occurred to her that they might be able to get some information about what Chuck was up to quicker where they were. "Why don't we go upstairs first and see if we can talk some information out of someone upstairs before we go to the new offices? And, who knows, maybe Chuck is still up there," she offered.

"That sounds like an excellent idea," said Nikki , "I like to bust the chops of that bunch up there whenever I get the chance anyways. Let's go."

As they rode upstairs on the elevator the two of them cast quick glances at each other both directly and indirectly in the mirrored walls of the elevator. Chuck was definitely right, Nikki looked…amazing, and Sarah realized it was having an odd effect on her. It was making her feel…possessive. She didn't even want to think of the word jealous.

"You said you are Chuck's office manager?"

"Yes, I just started working for Chuck last week, I'm doing a number of things for him right now."

"So I've been told," said Sarah quietly as she looked straight ahead.

*Ping* The elevator chimed announcing they were on the fourth floor.

They exited into the operations center foyer and entered a reception area with a tall-countered semicircular receptionists desk with a retina scanner on it and a pleasant young woman sitting at the desk behind it. The nameplate on the counter said, 'Greta'. There was a very imposing looking door off to the side and behind Greta.

"Good morning ladies can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Station Chief Charles Carmichael, is he still here?" Sarah posed the question in her most pleasant but authoritative voice.

"My I enquire as to whom is looking for him?" asked Greta pleasantly.

"I'm his wife, Agent Sara Walker, and this is Chuck's …Vice President of Operations, Nikki Lawson." Nikki shot her an amused glance that she returned, and continued. "We understand he was called up here about an hour ago?"

"Just one moment Mrs. Walker. Or is it Carmichael?" she asked with a wry smile. "Let me check the roster. If both of you would be so kind as to let us check your identity on the scanner I'll pull up the duty roster for the day."

Sarah stood in front of the retina scanner and a sudden instant of doubt crossed her mind as she wondered if it would be accepted. It beeped acceptance at her and she inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Nikki casually did the same with positive results, and Sarah made a note to herself that she now knew one more important thing about Nikki Lawson.

Greta looked at the monitor as she scrolled through a personnel list. "Chief Carmichael _was_ here, but he left with Station Chief Oddo from the heliport about forty-five minutes ago. If you want any more information you'll have to talk to the watch officer, I'm not allowed to discuss it further in this area."

_The heliport? _"Can we go back to speak to the watch officer then? I'm a little concerned about my husband."

"Of course. I'll let agent Watson know you're here."

After they waited a few minutes the door opened with a click and a hiss and a tall blond headed and slender man walked into the room wearing his standard issue black G' man suit with a white shirt and black tie and black rubber soled oxfords.

"Welcome Agent Walker, Ms. Lawson. I'm Richard Watson, please follow me." And the man turned and walked back through the door as they followed him into what appeared to be a large lounge area with chairs and coffee tables and a couple of couches. The room arched off left and right into hallways lined with offices. Ahead of them through open double doors on a curved wall was a very large room filled with workstations and large monitors strategically arrayed around the walls and other locations within the room. This was obviously the station operations center and it was buzzing with the activity of approximately twenty people busy doing various tasks around the room. As Sarah looked at all the activity her eye was drawn to one large monitor at the center of the room showing a large house viewed from overhead. It had several black vehicles parked in front of it and figures could be seen walking around outside the building.

She glanced back at Agent Watson. He had been watching her looking at the monitor. "This area is secure, we can talk freely here." He motioned to the seating. "Would you like to have a seat?" It sounded more like a command than a request so Sarah remained standing. Nikki picked it up too and followed Sarah's cue as they wandered closer towards the double doors and looked at the activity in the room beyond. Finally Agent Watson shrugged his shoulders and walked over to stand with them. "Yes, your husband is at that house with my boss."

Sarah turned to look him in the eye. "Is that Nicholas Quinn's base of operations?" She had spent several days trying to find that house before she finally tried to kill Quinn on his jet.

"We think it might be," answered Watson, "We raided it about thirty minutes ago, and right now it's being searched for anything useful to the investigation that Quinn or his associates might have left there."

"Did Chuck participate in the raid?" Sarah's face was veiled from expression as she slipped into spy mode but her eyes were betraying her a bit, she was a little agitated.

"Yes, he and the Station Chief were in the first two groups to breach the building. The timing turned out to be very critical." He paused as if to consider his words, "They stopped a group of men getting ready to demo the house. The place was filled with explosives."

Both the women turned to Richard Watson with a stony gaze. "Did your people have any idea what they might be walking into?" Nikki Lawson asked with ice in her voice.

The watch officer took half a step back clearly caught off guard by the glare and the icy tone, "We knew that the bad guys were in the target house, but no one suspected they were planning to destroy it. Fortunately we arrived when they were still in the house. They were looking for something in the house as well as prepping it for demo. Seems they knew we might be coming and didn't want to leave anything for us to find that would link them to being there."

All of the sudden Sarah collapsed onto one knee and gasped as her vision filled with jagged bright white light accompanied with intense pain. And with the pain came a recent memory. She was with Chuck in their apartment living room talking about the direction of Carmichael Industries, the dangers their lives were constantly exposed to by their work, and…_babies?_ _Is this real? Am I losing my mind? One last mission?_

As the flash receded she slowly became aware again of her surroundings and someone talking crouched next to her holding her arm and rubbing her neck where it met her shoulders. She turned to see a very distressed Nikki Lawson. "Sarah, are you okay? You had me worried there for a minute. I thought you'd had a stroke or something."

"I think…I'm O.K...now…it's passing." Her expression turned to one of confusion. "Where are we?"

"We're in the ops center, remember?" The look of distress on Nikki's face was not dissipating. "I think we should go back downstairs to see Dr. Dreyfus about this."

Agent Watson then re-entered the room with a colleague who was carrying a medical kit. Sarah looked at Watson like he was a complete stranger, a puzzled look on her face. She then turned back to Nikki. "No. No, I'm fine now. I'll talk to the doctor about this later." She only had one thing on her mind at this moment.

"Where is Chuck?"

Agent Watson pointed at the monitor in the ops center again as his eyes narrowed, "As I said when you asked before, there, at Quinn's base of operations."

Sarah pointed to the screen as her face became clouded with anger, "Tell me where that house is, Agent...agent…"

"Watson," interjected, Nikki.

"That house, Agent Watson, tell me where it is..._.right now._" Sarah Walker looked like she was about to tear somebody's head off, and Richard Watson didn't want to be any party to that.

As Sarah and Nikki strode briskly into the elevator Nikki looked at her and muttered, "Vice President of Operations?"

Sarah looked at Nikki and gave her a restrained smile, "Frankly, after all the things Chuck said you do for him I didn't think 'office manager' came close to cutting it."

"VP of Operations works for me. Thanks for the promotion", Nikki responded as she studied Sarah closely.

Sarah caught the look. "I'm alright. Really."

Nikki didn't say a word, instead, she responded with a solicitous smile.

- III -

His hands were a blur on the keyboard as he adjusted the encryption algorithm on the fly. Chuck Bartowski was in his element and in the zone. So far he had stayed three steps ahead of the very robust encryption software on the computer he was hacking into. As he keyed in a final line in machine code his fingers flashed to the F12 key and then to the Enter key to execute the applet he'd just written. The screen flashed once, and then he was in. "Bwahaha, once again the Piranha has left nothing but bones!" he proclaimed as he clenched his fists in front of him in victory and shook them. "Now, show me what you're trying to hide from me in here Quinn…and may you then rot in hell," he quietly added.

He then finally looked at the activity going on in the room around him as his focus shifted from the task he had been totally absorbed in to the easier task of just accessing and searching the files he was after. He typed in a search string and sat back to watch. Several NSA forensic techs were scanning the room with backscatter x-ray equipment looking for hidden vaults and stashes. They swept the rooms methodically marking the walls, ceiling, and floor with small cans of spray paint as they went if they saw something on the devices that looked out of place.

Others, whom he was hoping were bomb disposal technicians were finally removing over a dozen covered five gallon paint buckets from the house that apparently judging from the smell were filled with a slurry of diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. The three-gallon plastic cans of gasoline that had been set around the poor man's demolitions had been removed straight away before the team had removed the detonators and the cell phone triggering device. It had been a very tense several moments before the cell phone trigger had been removed. A call could have come in at any time to trigger the charges and everyone in the building knew it. The whole operation could have been being monitored by someone nearby and blown to immolated little pieces with a simple phone call, and Chuck, Oddo, and about twelve other agents had just started their search of the house when the charges and the cell phone detonator had been discovered. The choice of explosives was probably designed to try to deflect an investigation. Uncomplicated, untraceable, and very effective, there would have been very little left of the large house, and what was left would have left rather ambiguous clues as to whom was responsible.

An NSA technician marked a square on the hardwood floorboards not far from where Chuck was sitting in a large office area. He looked curiously at the markings on the floor and back at the triple monitored workstation on the very large teak desk he was sitting at as two techs approached the spot with a small battery operated circular saw and a pry bar, "No, no, no, no, guys, hang on there a minute," he blurted out as he looked at the lead tech. "what exactly did you see under there?" This place was really starting to give Chuck the creeps, and he was quickly learning to carefully watch his step around anything to do with Nicholas Quinn, whether the devious bastard was dead or not.

"Looks to be a hidden storage vault of some sort, sir," answered the tech, "approximately two-by-two-by-three, judging by the image it's made of steel, some sort of opening mechanism, and wiring to it that appears to be power and control."

"Let me see that gizmo." Chuck pointed to the x-ray equipment lying on the floor and the forensic tech picked it up and handed it to him – he almost let it get away from his grip, it was heavy! He looked at the device a minute quickly deciphering how it operated and pointed it at the area around the desk. The other agents quickly stepped out of the way – it seemed that none of them wanted to be in front of the thing when it was on – _file that one away in the old memory banks. _The wiring led to the wall next to the desk and terminated at a box within the wall. The box appeared to have what looked like a wifi antenna on it. He swept the x-ray viewer back toward the discovered vault and looked carefully at it on the devices monitor. "Take another hard look at this and tell me what you see", he said to the NSA tech.

The tech looked over Chucks shoulder at the monitor for a moment as Chucks finger traced the outline of the inside edge of the vault and stopped at the corner of it. He then let out a low whistle as he looked at Chuck, "Thanks sir, you just save us all from a world of hurt."

Chuck handed the device back to him and stepped back to the workstation. "Give me a few minutes with this. I think this PC controls that thing with the wifi card."

He pulled the small tablet PC from his tactical vest pocket and plugged it in to the USB port of the PC as he removed the thumb drive he had been previously been using with the same hand in a single motion. Tapping the tablet face he pulled up a program that started to search the executable files on the PC's hard drive for the type he was looking for, and then he pulled up a password search program as the executable program files started to scroll down the PC's monitor. The activity in the room had attracted the Station Chief's attention and Oddo came over to watch over his shoulder as Chuck worked.

As executable files that met his search parameters started to fill a window other windows started to pop up on the second monitor showing results from his previous searches. Station Chief Oddo pointed to one of them and said, "What's this? CAD files? Schematics?"

Chuck clicked on one of them and OrCAD booted up showing a printed circuit board design. "Holy techno widgets, Batman."

Vincent Oddo pointed to the notations at the bottom of the drawing and both men turned and looked at one another. "Pull this data off now", Oddo said flatly. Chuck didn't say a word, but he wondered how much Oddo knew about the Intersect.

Chuck pulled a small solid state portable hard drive from another of his pockets, swiftly plugged it in, and started transferring files to it. He then switched his attention back to the search results for the .exe files. He highlighted three of them and pulled the code into a compiler. _There, that one. _He studied the code for a moment. Switching back to the source window, he was about to click the executable when he was interrupted again by Vincent, "What are these? Videos?"

"Yup, MP4. Give me a couple of seconds with this. I think this is the program that controls that vault", Chuck said as he pointed at the floor, "Then we'll have a look at one of those MP4 files."

Chuck clicked the program file and a window displayed on the monitor showing just a password box. He started his password search program on his tablet and watched the characters scroll rapidly by on the password box. He then moved the cursor over to the other monitor and double clicked one of the video files. And his face went white.

Sarah was strapped to a chair and her head was strapped to a rest. Her eyes were being held open with eye speculums and they were fluttering and dancing around as she cried out in pain. Someone off camera was talking to her, taunting her. It sounded like Quinn. "You _bastard," _Chuck muttered under his breath. Quinn's voice faded away as he was flooded with every emotion he knew he had in him in a heartbeat. Sarah was alternating between gasping, catching breaths, and cries of what had to be pure agony. He knew how tough Sarah was; this had to be very, very, bad for her. As she gasped trying to collect herself Quinn was talking to her, but none of the words were registering in Chuck's mind, his focus was completely on Sarah and his face was painted with horror. "You _BASTARD."_

Momentarily, Chuck felt a hand on his shoulder and Vincent took the mouse from his hand and closed the video. "I'm sorry, Chuck, you shouldn't have had to see that, and I you need to snap out of it, man. Look." he said as he pointed at the vault control program.

Slowly Chuck's gaze refocused on the password box to see that it was almost filled. The password was a long one. It pulled him jarringly back to the present. _**Do_NOT!_ trust_ bO_ dEREK!_ $$!**_ Presently, the last character fell into place – one more exclamation point - and a button highlighted at the bottom of the window. He collected himself and clicked it. And with a combined pneumatic sound and the whirring of an electric motor a section of the flooring retracted down and slid to the side as the steel door of the vault slid open in the opposite direction. Oddo stepped over to the vault and began carefully removing items from it and placing them on the edge of the large desk. There were several items in the vault, including what Chuck knew to be Intersect components from previous flashes and some other unrecognizable electronic devices he'd never seen. There was a zippered black leather case about five-by-seven inches, a portable hard drive and a small memory card wallet. Then Vincent pulled out a camera, a cell phone, a S&W 5906 handgun, and a small black box. The handgun and the cell phone looked like Sarah's.

Chuck glanced at the items on the desk as he was working at the computer. His eyes fell on the small black box piled with the other items. Curiously he picked it up and as he opened it his heart leapt into his throat. He pulled the contents out and examined them as he held them in his fingertips. His eyes were almost brimming over as he swiftly stuffed them into his flight suit sleeve pocket and zipped it shut. Station Chief Oddo had watched the whole thing and didn't say a word. He knew exactly to whom they belonged.

Then Chuck picked up the rectangular leather case and opened the zipper that went around three sides of it. Just then he heard Agent John Roger's voice from the doorway, "Uh, sir?" Both Chuck and Vincent looked up to see Sarah Walker and Nikki Lawson standing in the doorway with a rather sheepish looking Agent Rogers standing behind them. Nikki looked hard eyed and collected, but Sarah's expression was one of a woman who was about to kill someone with a single blow and knew how to do it.

"We need to talk, Chuck" Sarah's voice had a hard razors edge to it. Nikki nodded in agreement sending Chuck a message of alarm with her eyes.

"Sarah! What are you doing here?" The whole scene sort of overwhelmed Chuck and the case he was holding slipped from his hands and fell with thunk on the floor, it's contents spilling out with a clatter. His eyes fell on several rectangular objects that looked like they had a diffraction grating with holographic symbols embossed on them. And he flashed. It was wickedly painful and violent and he fell to his knees as he instinctively looked away from the cards. His head was spinning as he was instantly overcome by a migraine and felt like he might pass out.

Sarah and Nikki bolted across the room and as Sarah came to Chuck's side to grab hold of him she stared down at the cards; she gasped loudly and fell into a heap on top of Chuck. Nikki, seeing the cause and effect of what was happening grabbed the contents of the case, shoved them back into it and zippered it shut. She then tucked the case into the back of her skirt waistband as she caught Oddo's questioning eyes falling on her. "C'mon, lets get these two out of here," she commanded as she looked at the Station Chief.

"I think I know what just happened here", exclaimed Oddo.

"Yeah," Nikki said with unmasked disgust, "this was how that son-of-a-bitch Quinn brain-washed Sarah." She motioned to Rogers and another agent with him. "C'mon! Help us get Chuck and Sarah up and somewhere comfortable where they can lie down." She pulled out her iPhone to dial Ellie Bartowski's number.

- IV -

A disgusted Edgar Sloan sat in his 7 series BMW three blocks away from Quinn's safehouse watching the activity around it with a compact spotting scope propped on the steering wheel. They were clearly NSA and CIA cleaners, and his crew had botched the job. Now he had to come up with an alternate plan to recover the Intersect equipment that he knew had to be stashed in the house. He'd considered for a moment just calling the detonator and just taking out the entire raiding party but he wanted the equipment more, and he couldn't tell from where he was sitting if any of the people on site were important enough to sacrifice the Intersect Intel for anyways.

Biding his time seemed to be the prudent decision under the circumstances. He'd just have to rely on the last four remaining Fulcrum operatives he had well hidden within the CIA. Those four were the only ones that had escaped being identified by what was thought to be the Intersect 1.0 over three years ago. He'd have to use those assets wisely if he wanted to obtain the equipment and use it to help rebuild the Fulcrum organization.

After picking up his phone and ordering the surveillance team two blocks behind him to take over his watch of the house, Edgar Sloan started his car and drove away.

- V -

Sarah awoke lying on her side on an unfamiliar bed with a splitting headache. As her eyes slowly refocused she realized she was face-to-face with Chuck Bartowski. He had a gentle smile on his face as he looked into her eyes. "Hi", he said.

"Hi." She rubbed her temple and blinked, then looked again as his smile transformed into something a little goofier. She looked at him curiously as she tried to pinch off the pain in her head.

"I got to Fast Rope out of a Blackhawk today, honey."

She lay there looking at him feeling a conflicting mixture of pride in Chuck's easy and natural ability to do the heroic and an overwhelming anger and want to keep him safe and get him away from the constant risk associated with their jobs. "I'm going to gut Station Chief Oddo with my smallest knife when I see his sorry ass", she said as a scowl grew on her face.

Now obviously confused he said, "_What? _I don't understand, I thought you would get a kick out of hearing that."

"Maybe Sarah Walker does, but Sarah Bartowski clearly does not", she replied, visibly disturbed by the duality of the words she'd just uttered. "I thought we were trying to get away from these sorts of risky ops, Chuck; wasn't that the reason for realigning Carmichael Industries' mission?" She rolled onto her back and groaned, "God, I need some aspirin. About half a bottle should do the trick."

Chuck reached over to place his hand on hers and she turned her head to look at him again. He didn't say it, but she could see that the words 'I love you' were written all over him. It caused her to regain her smile as she looked into his eyes.

Hearing the conversation coming from the room Nikki Lawson appeared at the doorway to the large bedroom they were in with two one liter bottles of water. "How are you two doing?" Nikki didn't wait for an answer. She crossed the room and handed a bottle to each of them as Chuck and Sarah gingerly sat up. Then Nikki sat on the corner of the bed. "I've been instructed by your personal physician," she looked at Chuck, "your sister, to make sure that both of you drink all of this, then I'll have another one for you and something for your headaches."

Chuck looked around the strange room and down at his clothing. He wasn't wearing the nomex flight suit any longer and a sudden look of anxiety crossed his face.

"Don't worry Chuck, I have them. I'll keep them safe for you for the time being," Nikki anticipated.

Sarah watched the relief wash over Chuck's face and looked back and forth between Nikki and him. "Am I missing something here?"

"Yeah, you are missing something, sweetie," Chuck said apologetically, "but I think we're going to have to discuss it later. Sorry. Where are we Nikki? What happened to us?"

"Still at the safehouse. We borrowed one of the bedrooms. We were going to transport you to the hospital, but Ellie said you'd be O.K. here after we told her what your vitals were. Both of you were exposed to the technology that Quinn used to wipe Sarah's memories." Both Chuck and Sarah's eyes grew wide at the revelation. "What is the last thing you remember, Boss?"

"I have a vague recollection of you and Sarah standing in a doorway with disgusted looks on your faces. Don't remember anything after that."

"And you, Sarah?" Nikki asked.

Sarah stopped drinking from the water bottle and looked at Nikki thoughtfully, "You and I on an elevator and you thanking me for the job promotion." She looked around, "This is Quinn's safehouse?"

Nikki nodded an affirmative to Sarah, as Chuck spoke, "A job promotion? Is there something _I'm_ missing here?"

Sarah and Nikki exchanged look of amusement, then Sarah answered, "Yeah, you are, sweetie, but we should probably save that discussion for later, too."

"Touché", he laconically answered. He looked at Nikki, "You mentioned you talked to Ellie?"

"Yes. The whole Woodcomb family is on the way out here from Chicago right now. Their flight should be arriving right after the dinner hour. Ellie wanted me to tell the both of you to expect lots of tests at the annex medical center tomorrow. It will probably take most of the day and she wants you there at 7:30am. Your appointment with Dr. Dreyfus has also been moved up to Thursday and he wants both of you there for that."

Sarah and Chuck looked curiously at each other. Things were moving very fast, indeed. "Who is minding the office right now?" asked Chuck.

"Morgan has been there since you called me this morning. He called me a little while ago to say he was about ready to close up and head home because the computer contractors are just about done for the day. He says you owe him another day off."

Chuck rolled his eyes, "I'll bet he had a real tough day browsing the Internet from your workstation."

Nikki smiled briefly at that and looked at her watch. "Chuck, I've finished transferring all the files from the computer you were working on and the forensic team will be taking the PC case back to the ops center for further evaluation." She looked at him very pointedly, and a shocked and disturbed look in her eyes acknowledged something they now shared, then she continued, "The techs have disabled the vaults self-destruct mechanism, so moving the computer shouldn't be a problem now. We'll drop the data you and I collected and most of the other collected tech at Castle, and then I'll take you and Sarah to your car," She then very purposefully captured both of their attention with a very penetrating gaze, "Ellie will be coming to Castle sometime tomorrow to examine some of the tech that was recovered." Nikki pulled the leather case from her skirt waistband and waved it in front of them, "Under no circumstances are either of you to open this case, that is unless you're interested in having a repeat of the long nap and headaches you both have." She looked at them to make sure the point was made, then, "Finish those bottles of water so I can get you those meds, and then we can get out of here. I'll be back in a few minutes." And she left the room without another word.

Sarah stared awestruck at Chuck, "Where did you find her? She _is_ amazing."

Chuck shrugged and gave her a self-satisfied smile, "Yeah, she definitely deserves that promotion. Can I pick em' or what? Just what is her new title now?"

Then he thought of the look Nikki had given him about the data recovery and his expression sobered; he knew she had seen the video, even as he wished his experience with Quinn's flashcards had erased his own memory of it.

- VI -

It was already after the dinner hour when Nikki dropped them off at Chuck's car. They had both been asleep for several hours after their encounter with Nicholas Quinn's flashcards, and half the day had been lost along with some memories of it. The flashcards hadn't affected Chuck nearly as badly as they had Sarah. He had actually been awake over an hour before Sarah, and had spent the time just watching her sleep. Apparently his memory loss wasn't as bad either. He'd lost only a fraction of the time Sarah had. He figured the reasons to be his generally better aptitude as an Intersect subject and the questionable quality of the Intersect version Sarah had uploaded. He was still trying to deal with the fact that they were literally an Intersect couple. That is, if Sarah had come to grips with the fact that they _were _a couple, and that seemed to be the case more and more by the minute.

Sarah was watching his obvious musings as they got into the car. "What now, Chuck?"

"Home?"

She gave him a tight lipped smile, "That's not what I meant, but home's fine."

He pushed the starter button and looked over at her, "There are so many questions I want to ask you, but I can't. I saw some things today Sarah...I saw what Quinn did to...The simple truth is, you've already been through so much, but…Sarah, I wish I could talk about these things with you, they're important, but I'm afraid I'll only make things worse if I do...there are so many things I want to share with you, so many things you already remember that I wish I could tell you more about, but I've been told not to." Chuck looked like he was about to come apart at the seams, "This is tearing me up inside, Sarah."

Sarah tried to send Chuck a message with her eyes that was meant to reassure and calm him, that wordless message that she somehow knew would always ground him. "It's okay, Chuck, I trust that you'll do what's right for both of us. Eventually we'll get to talk about it. Let's just let it all go for now and try to live in the moment. That's what Dr. Dreyfus said we should do, and I trust him too. C'mon, let's go home." Chuck's hand was on the shifter and she placed her hand on top of his and as she gripped his hand she looked him in the eye and winked. He got the message she was sending and as he depressed the clutch she pushed the stick into first gear. "Let it go for now. Let's go home, we'll deal with all of this one gear at a time."

He looked at Sarah and saw the mirth dancing in her eyes, "Ha, Ha, a car metaphor. Should I take some small comfort in the fact you don't have an accelerator or brake pedal over there?"

"Only until tomorrow, then I'll be driving, you may wish you have them over here then." She gave his hand another squeeze, "We have a big day tomorrow, so lets go."

When they pulled up to park in front of the El Cabrillo there was a movers truck parked outside on the street and a steady stream of men moving furniture and boxes into the apartment that only a few weeks ago had been occupied by Devan and Ellie Woodcomb and their baby girl, Clara. There was an unusual efficiency in the way the truck was being emptied that set warning alarms off in Sarah's head as she watched the ballet being performed in front of them – she'd seen this more than a few times in her career as a government operative – this was a Company crew.

Sarah grabbed Chuck's hand as they walked through the entry portal to the courtyard, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing here?"

Chuck looked at the name on the side of the movers truck and flashed, "Yeah, something is definitely up, that moving company is an Agency shell corporation." As the words crossed his lips he saw Morgan standing in his and Alex's apartment doorway pointing repeatedly to the apartment on the opposite corner from theirs. The movers were going in and out of that one also. "Sarah, something very weird is going on here."

"Wasn't that apartment occupied by that nice older couple?" Asked Sarah.

"_Yes_, Mr. And Mrs. Addisian; they've been living there for years. They came to our wedding." They hurried over to where Morgan was standing. "Morgan do you know what is going on here?"

"It's a government takeover, Chuck. It looks like the El Cabrillo has become the NSA's latest acquisition in the fight to save the world from the clutches of evil, although I have no idea who is going to save us from the NSA. By the way, dude, I hope you two didn't have any special plans for this evening, you have house guests."

"What?" Chuck and Sarah chorused.

"Yeah, I kind of used my old key to let them in." He shrugged, "I couldn't just let them stand around in the courtyard until these…_efficiency experts_ were through turning the place into a government home decorators showcase, now, could I?"

Sarah mouthed the name "Ellie?" to Chuck with a look of pain as she palmed her face. She was still trying to come to grips with what she had done to Ellie over six weeks ago.

"Exactly!" Morgan exclaimed, "I didn't think I needed to mention names."

Chuck placed his arm around Sarah's shoulders, "Don't worry, baby. Ellie is over that, really. She knows more than anyone what happened to you and what you're currently going through. You have to see her tomorrow anyway, so you might as well get it done right now."

* * *

**A/N** ...and the plot thickens. Please review. I'd like to hear what you're thinking


	6. Act 5

**A/N **5/1/12 – Wow, this was a long act. Thanks to **uplink2** for providing beta services on this chapter, it's very much appreciated. One of the things **uplink2** noticed and a few other astute readers will probably also see was a slight break from canon re: E12. I don't know if it could be called a complete retcon because there was a loss of continuity at the beginning of that episode carried forward after the episode title credits so a certain degree of license could be justified in this case. See if you can spot what we're talking about.

A hat-tip to my friends at STI International, and Larry Correia, along with his MHI character Owen Pitt. Fellow monster hunters Larry and Owen turned me on to these amazing tools of the trade, and it only seemed fitting to me that my new character in this story should be using them too.

**I don't own Chuck. **

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 5**

When they walked through the front door of Casa Bartowski the first thing they saw was Devon sitting on the couch with his slumbering daughter Clara in his arms.

"Chuck, Sarah! It's so good to see you!" Devon said it with hushed excitement as his daughter stirred a little in his lap and he started to get up to greet them.

"No,no,no,no, it's O.K., don't get up, let's not disturb Clara." Chuck walked around the couch behind him and clasped Devon's raised hand as his other hand gave his shoulder a squeeze. "It's nice to see you too, Devon. How is Chicago?"

"It's good, bro. Never a dull moment, every day is a welcome challenge, but, Chuck, Sarah…we really missed you guys and the good times we've had here." He looked back and forth from Chuck to Sarah who was still near the door with a look of intense worry and discomfort showing on her face, her hands were visibly shaking at her sides. "However," he continued, "it looks like those good times may roll again, because our life looks like it has suddenly become a tale of two cities. How awesome is that?"

Devon looked at Sarah again sensing the source of her discomfort. He fixed an intense but understanding look on her, like he wanted her undivided attention. "Sarah, please come in and sit down, we don't want you to be uncomfortable in your own home. We forgave you a long time ago."

Sarah blanched at his statement, and as she stood there she realized what another one of the big reasons had been that made her originally run from Chuck and how very reluctant she had been to face this moment. Even now she was fighting an overwhelming urge to run out the door. "How can you forgive me for what I did, Devon, I could have killed Ellie," she suddenly tensed even more as she looked at the baby in Devon's arms, "I could have left your daughter without a mother."

Chuck watched the exchange and started to speak when his brother-in-law gave him a look that said 'don't' as he held up his hand. Chuck sat on the back of the couch and held his tongue.

Devon showed Sarah a smile even as his eyes showed her some sadness, "Yeah, Sarah, what you did was pretty bad, but you certainly can't take all the blame for what happened, in fact speaking as a medical professional who now knows all the facts about your case, I don't see how you can take much of any of the blame, so stop trying to shoulder all of it, okay?"

"How can you say that Devon? The choice to hold your wife hostage was mine, I made it." She clasped her hands in front of her in an attempt to quell their shaking.

"Sarah you really need to talk to Ellie, but just know this; I've seen the medical data from your case, and I understand there is now even more compelling information about what you were subjected to. I forgive you for what you did, Sarah. Please, accept that from me, and then maybe try to forgive yourself. As far as we're concerned you'll always be our sister, and that will never change…not ever. So chill out sis, you're among family." It was a moment of insightful awesomeness that only Captain Awesome, Devon Woodcomb could ever pull off.

Devon reached around and placed his hand on Chuck's as he cocked his head toward Sarah and cast a glance toward her that wordlessly said, _Get over there bro!_

Chuck lurched to his feet and walked around the couch to wrap his arm around Sarah and gave her a hug while he calmed her trembling hands with his other hand. It was now his turn to give Sarah the steady support she needed. Sarah started to relax a bit as she looked sheepishly at Devon but as she looked at him and saw the acceptance showing in his eyes a sense of relief slowly started to wash over her. She knew she had done some terrible things, made some awful misjudgments, and failed to see the people she should have trusted when they were standing right in front of her. Yet it seemed Chuck's family almost refused to believe any of it had ever happened, could ever happen, or that she was even capable of any of the things she had actually done. It was an unsettling contradiction to her. But Devon had laid it all on the line the minute they had walked through the door by telling her to put her own discomfort to rest. Chuck truly had an amazing family. She had an intense desire to know these people again, and she could feel the desire galvanizing her resolve in spite of her intense feelings of guilt.

"Thank you, Devon, I'm very sorry for what happened." It was all she could muster at the moment as she walked around the couch with Chuck and placed her hand on Devon's shoulder and Captain Awesome patted her hand with a smile on his face.

"Put it behind you, Sarah, we have." said Awesome.

Chuck looked from Sarah to Devon and a look of appreciation grew on his face as he thought of the significance of what his brother-in-law had said so spontaneously and unbidden. He squeezed Devon's shoulder again to thank him. Then it occurred to him, "Where is Ellie, Devon?"

"Chuck!" Ellie came charging down the hallway from the bathroom and almost bowled her brother over with an intense bear hug that conveyed an uncommon love and longing amplified by unwanted absence. "I've missed you so much, little brother! It just felt so wrong to me leaving when we did."

"I missed you too, sis." They relished the embrace for a moment before the world reconvened around them. They pried themselves from each other and Ellie became aware of a withdrawn and nervous Sarah staring at her from a cautious distance. She looked at Sarah with an expression of love and of forgiveness that emotionally rocked Sarah and pulled her toward Ellie like a moth to a flame. Ellie stepped to her and took a hold of Sarah's hands and looked into her eyes.

"Sarah…" It was all she said, her eyes brimming over, and she gathered her up in an embrace that spoke volumes.

Sarah was overwhelmed. She couldn't believe this was the same person she had held a gun on and whose life she had threatened only six weeks ago. How could Ellie do this? There had to be so much history between them hiding right beneath the surface that she couldn't see. Ellie's embrace elicited an emotional response that poured from her like a spring in the desert. It was beautiful, it was miraculous, it was life sustaining, and it was just there, and it left her wondering how this fountain of cool water could just spring forth from the parched land of her recent existence. Her soul drank heavily from the unexpected oasis she found herself in. And not a word had been spoken. _How could I even have thought of walking away from this? What has Nicholas Quinn stolen from me? I want it back! _Her self-control evaporated and she started to shake in Ellie's arms.

It only made Ellie hold her more tightly. "I'm so happy to see you, Sarah. I can't tell you how much I hoped you would be here. The thought that I might lose my sister was becoming unbearable."

Ellie's tight hug was calming her, she didn't know why, and as Ellie's embrace calmed her she held Ellie more tightly too. A part of her wanted to run, but the part of her that heard and held on securely to the word 'sister' won her over unconditionally. She wanted to say something but the words simply weren't there.

There was a firm knock on the door.

Chuck shook himself free from the sight of Sarah and Ellie and collected himself as he strode to the door and answered it.

"Station Chief Bartowski?" Chuck nodded. "Agent Anthony Carmichael, sir. The Woodcomb's apartment is ready for them, sir. A meal has been prepared for all of you as well and it's waiting for you on the table over there, compliments of General Beckman." He handed Chuck three sets of keys. "If you need anything else, sir, please call this number," and he handed Chuck a business card.

Chuck pulled his jaw up off the floor. _His name is Carmichael? And he knows my real name. _ "Thank you Agent Carmichael, thank you very much."

"Have a good evening sir." Agent Carmichael spun on his heel to leave, but turned back. "Oh, and sir? If you find yourself in need of a good logistics specialist, please give that card to Ms. Lawson."

"Absolutely. Consider it done."

"Thank you, sir. Good night."

Chuck turned back to everyone else in the room and could see what had to be his own expression mirrored on all the other faces there. He smiled sheepishly, "Is anyone hungry? It sounds like the Woodcomb's have invited us to dinner."

- II -

Dinner in the Woodcomb's new/old apartment was very pleasant. Agent Carmichael's crew prepared a sumptuous Cassoulet prepared in the classic French tradition with rich pork sausage and goose. It was served with a country salad, sautéed butternut squash, and a plate of bread and cheeses complimented by two excellent bottles of Bordeaux, each tagged with a personal sentiment from Diane Beckman. As they sat around the table enjoying the splendid meal and chatting about Chicago they couldn't help but look around at the rest of the room they were in. The apartment was a sight to behold. Family photos and paintings adorned the walls and the tabletops of furnishings that perfectly matched the Spanish architecture of the apartment. Not a single detail had been left out, from the cookware in the kitchen, to the linens in the upstairs cabinets and the luxurious towels hanging in the bathrooms. The whole experience the scene created was a lot to take in. What the Company crew had accomplished in a few hours in this apartment reminded Chuck of the transformation that had been done to a house in the suburbs that he and Sarah had very briefly shared during a mission three years ago. He wanted to share that memory with her but now he couldn't. Conversation was so difficult when he had to constantly be on guard about bringing up anything from their past. Ellie and Devon's new life in Chicago seemed to be the safest topic of conversation at the moment.

When dinner was done Chuck got up to help his sister in the kitchen as Sarah and Captain Awesome exchanged small talk at the dining table. Looking over Devon's shoulder Sarah watched Chuck and Ellie talking in hushed tones about something that by their expressions looked to be very important. She finally excused herself to Devon and as she went to pick up their dinner plates Devon reached out and gave her hand a squeeze and smiled at her before she walked into the kitchen.

Sarah placed the dinner plates on the counter and schooled her features as she turned to them, "Chuck, can I have a word with Ellie for a minute?"

Chuck and Ellie exchanged a knowing look and he circumspectly smiled and nodded to Sarah as he stroked her arm with his hand before leaving the kitchen. She felt a now familiar tingle from his touch. Ellie looked at her questioningly.

Her eyes said she was trying to find the words, and then quietly she said, "Ellie, I can't tell you how sorry I am about how I threatened you. I just don't know how I could have been so completely duped to believe that you or Chuck could be the people that Quinn had made you to be. I should have known better than to blindly accept the story I was given, I should have known something was wrong, I exercised terrible judgment and blinded myself to the truth when it was right there in front of me…I just don't know how I could let myself… I should have…"

Ellie raised her hand and placed one finger on Sarah's lips as she looked sympathetically into her eyes, "Not another word Sarah. You need to stop blaming yourself for that. You were subjected to some of the worst kind of torture and brainwashing a person could ever have inflicted on them. Believe me Sarah, I don't blame you for what happened."

"Ellie, I was trained to resist torture and conditioning…I shouldn't have-"

"Stop, Sarah. I'm a doctor of neurology remember? No amount of resistance training could have prepared you for what was done to you using the Intersect in your brain. You need to let go of that notion right now. I need you to focus on getting better. No would haves, could haves, or should haves, okay?"

Sarah nodded back with misty eyes.

"Sarah, we don't need to be talking about this right now. We're going to be talking about a lot of things tomorrow at the clinic. While we're conducting PET scans and EEG tests I'm going to be asking you some very hard questions and asking you to try to remember memories you've forgotten. I'm also going to be recounting some things you don't remember, and showing you some videos, pictures and objects that are memory associative. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

Sarah pulled her mouth into a tight line and nodded again.

"I've probably said too much already. I need to have you rested and clearheaded when you arrive tomorrow, so you should go home and get some rest." She gave Sarah a comforting smile. "We love you Sarah, We're going to fix this."

Ellie reached for Sarah and gave her a tight hug. After a long moment she released Sarah from her embrace, "I'll see you tomorrow, go home and cuddle up with your husband… Doctors orders."

Sarah brightened at the thought of Ellie's prescription and gave in, "Yes, doctor."

Ellie and Devon lay in their bed staring at the ceiling wondering what fates had brought them here again as their baby daughter slumbered just down the hall in a nursery that could only be described as marvelous. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure they would feel at home in their old apartment and it made Ellie wonder just how long they would staying here, not that she minded, she just wished the circumstances of their being here could have been different.

"What have we gotten ourselves into, Devon?"

"I don't know, babe, but it's definitely time to be awesome…for Chuck and Sarah."

- III -

Chuck and Sarah lay in their bed staring at the ceiling as they replayed the last few day's events in their minds. If they could have seen how closely those memories matched without even talking about it, the picture of the destiny it was painting would have astounded them.

Sarah turned to Chuck with a look of newly rediscovered admiration, "You have a remarkable family."

Chuck turned to her and locked his eyes on hers as his hand sought hers under the covers, "_We _have a remarkable family. You'll always have us as your family, Sarah, no matter what happens. You've earned that right by being the person we know that you are, the essence of you that can't be changed by anything."

Sarah pulled herself over to him and placed her hand on his chest as she rested her head on his shoulder. She could feel her eyes brimming over even as she reveled in the sensation of touching him. _Why did I run from this? _Absentmindedly her hand beneath the covers played with the ring on Chuck's left hand as she thought of what had happened right here in this bed only this morning. It made her skin feel hot just thinking about it.

"Chuck, I'm sorry I pulled back from you so hard. I was so angry and confused, I shouldn't have taken it out on you the way I did."

He kissed the top of her head, "Sweetheart, you've been through a lot. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult the last several weeks have been for you. Don't start second guessing yourself about it. Just let it be. Tomorrow is a new day."

_It's never about him; it's always about everyone else. No wonder I fell so hard for him._ She thought about the last six weeks and realized that as tough as it had been for her it must have been absolutely excruciating for Chuck, knowing all of the things they'd been through, what they shared, how much she could see he loved her, and then facing the possibility that he might lose it all because she had walked away. Not having any memories of their life together had made it very easy for her to run away, but knowing everything they had together and watching her leave had to have been heartbreaking for Chuck.

It was like he was reading her mind, "Don't worry about me Sarah, what's done is done and you're home, and I couldn't be happier that you're here."

Sarah snuggled in closer to him and lifted her head to give him a soft kiss, before settling her head on his chest and idly letting her fingers stroke the hair on his chest in soft circles.

She thought about what tomorrow might hold. "Chuck, someone obviously thinks Ellie and Devon are very important. Do you think Ellie's team will be able to help me?"

"Sweetie, Ellie has been working on the Intersect project for Diane since she arrived in Chicago. Before that she was researching it on her own using the data our dad had given her. She has been working to expand and improve my dad's work from the perspective of a neurologist and Diane has assembled an extraordinary team to assist her. She told me her ultimate goal is to create an Intersect the way my dad originally conceived it, a pure teaching tool that ultimately reduces and eliminates the need to flash, because the learning would become permanent. To answer your question, yes, I think Ellie and her team will be able to help you. I have tremendous faith in my sister, she's a Bartowski."

She smiled and looked at him inquisitively, "How will they do it? How can they rebuild the Intersect? It sounded like the technology and the programming was completely unrecoverable when you uploaded version 3 at the concert hall."

"Sarah, a lot of very gifted people are working on this, and we recovered a lot of valuable Intersect tech from Quinn's safehouse. Right now the focus of the effort is to help _you_. Anything is achievable when the right talent is assembled. We know this is true from our own experience. We've seen it first hand. The hardware part shouldn't be too difficult to duplicate, or even improve, and Ellie has asked me to get involved with some of the software engineering and coding. You might have to spend a few boring days watching me work at a computer terminal in Castle," he warned.

She pondered what he said and nodded thinking time spent watching Chuck work at a computer was a lot better than what she had been doing until very recently, "What exactly are we going to be doing at the clinic tomorrow?"

"As far as I know, tests, lots and lots of tests for the both of us." He reached over and brushed some of her hair from her face, and let his hand trail down her cheek as his thumb caressed her jaw line and then down her neck. "Trust me Sarah, we're going help you fix this."

She looked up into his eyes, "Why are they doing tests on you?"

"Ellie wants me to provide baseline datasets from the version 3 Intersect I currently have. She thinks the way my brain and v3 interact might hold some valuable insight into what can be done to help correct what the Ring intersect and Quinn's suppression techniques have done to you. The data will also be used for the Iv4 project."

"Will you be there for my testing?"

"Of course, that is, if Ellie will let me." He settled his head into his pillow, "I'll be with you every second I can, sweetie. I'm not going anywhere."

"Neither am I, Chuck. I'm beginning to wonder why I ever left at all."

_That is music to my ears, baby, _he thought as they both drifted off to sleep.

- IV -

They spent most of the next morning at the JPL annex research clinic taking turns getting contrast injections and spending time in either an MRI machine or a PET scanner. While the tests on the PET scanner were being completed they were listening to Ellie reading material from a script, read memory associative material to each other from a script or guideline, or watching videos. One of the videos was of their wedding and Sarah had flashed twice while watching it, once during the ceremony, and once when a picture was shown of her and Chuck kissing in the back seat of the limousine. _So Morgan took that picture._

Chuck was there when they happened and was greatly distressed by what he saw. He was having flashbacks to the videos he had seen in Quinn's safehouse. The second time it happened he emotionally exclaimed, "Ellie! Is this really necessary? This can't be good for her."

"Chuck, we have to do this," Ellie responded, "we have to see how her brain is physically reacting to the stimulus and the flashes, there is really no other way to do it."

A visibly tiring Sarah put her hand on her husbands arm, "It's okay, Chuck, I trust Ellie…I'm alright. Besides, I remembered something that was worth the pain just to experience it."

"Sarah, how can any memory be worth what I'm seeing happen to you?"

"It was us, Chuck, we were rehearsing our wedding vows in the dining room." She smiled weakly, "I had a doily on my head for a veil."

He returned a smile to Sarah filled with a mixture of elation and worry as he took her hand and squeezed it, "Oh, Sarah…I love you…"

She smiled back at him. _I'm getting there, sweetie._

Ellie smiled as she listened to their exchange and checked Sarah's vital signs on the monitor as she gave Sarah's other hand a squeeze. "Sarah, you should probably take a break. We'll let Chuck be the Guinea pig for a while." Ellie helped her sit up and move to a recliner in the corner of the room.

"Now little brother, we're going to spend some time triggering skill-set flashes from you. I'm going to intentionally try to evoke them in a rapid-fire manner to see how your brain reacts to them cumulatively. You're probably not going to like this much but I need you to go with it, okay?"

Now the anxiety was shifting from Chuck worrying about Sarah, to Sarah worrying about Chuck.

This went on for the rest of the morning. Sarah had three more 'mini' flashes, twice during a question and answer session about mission debriefings, and once when Ellie was telling her a story about her bachelorette party. Sarah was starting to look quite disoriented. Chuck could see that even as Ellie was maintaining a level of clinical detachment she was starting to show a little worry for the both of them in her eyes.

Ellie was studying the output from the latest PET scans and was starting to burn the data to a DVD as she turned to Chuck and Sarah. "I think it's time we took a lunch break. We'll be concentrating on EEG's this afternoon." She critically assessed her two tired looking patients, "I'm sorry to run the both of you through the ringer like this but I'm trying to get some useful data for our hardware specialists before our appointment with Leo Dreyfus tomorrow."

She turned back to the control console and pulled the freshly burned DVD from the tray and handed it to an assistant. "See to it that Dr. Depak gets this immediately, Ann."

At the mention of the name Chuck abruptly pushed his mind out from underneath the foggy headache he was experiencing, _Depak? _"Dr. Depak? Manoosh Depak?"

Sarah perked up in her chair. _Why do I know that name? _She had another small flash and scrunched her eyes shut.

"Damn it," Ellie exclaimed as she saw it - a lost data point. She looked back at her brother, "You know Manoosh Depak?"

Chuck and Sarah exchanged very uncomfortable looks between them, then Chuck spoke, "Manoosh Depak was my first CIA protected asset, I had to burn him and have him placed into protective custody about three years ago after he tried to sell Intersect technology on the open arms market. It was an awful experience…for all of us."

"Oh, Chuck..." Ellie shook her head; she was clearly disturbed by the revelation. Just when she was getting used to the idea of working for the DNI and her brother's occupation he had to go and drop something like this on her again. "Dr. Depak is here in Burbank, working on a governor for Sarah's Intersect at the research lab in Castle. This data is for him so he can optimize the governor for Sarah's Intersect and brain physiology."

"Does Manoosh know who he is making the governor for?" Sarah asked.

"Yes, he knows all about your current problem and has the highest level of project clearances. He's also very involved with the Iv4 project. Should we be concerned?"

Chuck looked at her with an expression of resurfacing pain from the old memory, "I don't know, El. Has he ever mentioned any of this to you?"

"No."

"Well, General Beckman and the DNI definitely know about it." Chuck appeared lost in thought for a few seconds. "I'm a little torqued that Diane didn't at least mention it to you."

"What do you think we should do?"

Sarah spoke up, "We'll see him tomorrow and see if we can figure this out on our own before we get anyone else involved. There may be much more to this than meets the eye."

Chuck looked at Ellie as a question abruptly entered his mind, "Manoosh has his doctorate now?" he inquired. "When I had him placed in protective custody he was a second year MIT dropout. Obviously a lot of positive things have happened for him in the last three years. He was a genius three years ago. It sounds to me like he didn't sit on his butt feeling sorry for himself for getting burned. I'm not sure if I'd have done as well."

Sarah looked at Chuck with sudden and wide-eyed realization of what he was saying and the pain showed on her face. _I was on a rooftop heliport pleading for Chuck not to be thrown into a bunker…_

Ellie looked at her in alarm, "Sarah, if you start to have multiple flashes you need to tell me about it right away."

"I'm okay, Ellie. It wasn't too bad. However, the memory…" The relived distress was painted all over her face. _I've been in love with Chuck this long? No, probably longer._

- V -

Edgar Sloan stared out of the ceiling to floor window of his upper floor Century City office. He was mad as hell and he was starting to get impatient as he thought about the botched operation at Quinn's base the day before. They had come so close to getting the Intersect hardware and destroying the remaining evidence that could link them to Quinn. He wondered how the NSA could have found out about it and wrecked his group's op before they were able to complete it. If only he had been able to get Wired to spill the location an hour earlier, then he wouldn't have to be asking himself these questions and maybe they could have killed some very important people as an added bonus. He shook his head in disgust and turned back to his computer workstation on his desk. Two of his remaining four deep cover operatives in the CIA had been activated this morning, but as yet they had not heard a word from either of them. One of them was at Langley and the other here in L.A. He would give them until sometime tomorrow before he gave any more thought to activating the last two agents.

The door to his office opened and a large man dressed in black entered carrying some files in his hand. He placed them on Sloan's desk. "Surveillance photos and the dossiers of the four persons of interest at Quinn's base yesterday. Three of them are fairly well known, the fourth not so much."

Sloan picked them up and shuffled through the files and opened Sarah Walkers first when he saw her picture attached to the front of it. "I definitely know this bitch, she tried to kill Quinn and me on his jet last month. I also had a run-in with her years ago. What more do we know about her?"

"She has a long and very colorful history as a field operative. She was one of Langston Graham's enforcers for several years, a trained assassin, very tough, extremely dangerous. Seems she'd been working a protective detail for several years partnered with an NSA agent, compartmented to the extreme, not a lot of additional info available except that the asset they were protecting was very important and living somewhere here in the Los Angeles area. She is now unaffiliated and married to the man in one of the other files, a Charles Carmichael. He's former CIA and owns a private computer security firm here in Pasadena, Carmichael Industries. His real name is Chuck Bartowski "

"Hmm, where have I heard that name before?" And then he looked up as the light bulb went on, "He's Stephen Bartowski's son isn't he?" He tossed Walkers file on the desk and looked at the one on Carmichael.

The man in black smiled tightly, "Yes, Stephen Bartowski is his father . Roark Instruments hired him just before the shit hit the fan; my department did the background check on him. He's a genius just like his father, and a Stanford grad. The file you have there is appended with additional information from his background check at Roark. Stephen Bartowski's son was _also _in Barstow, I remember, because I was there too; I barely got out in one piece."

Something else was tickling Sloan's memory about Chuck Bartowski but he couldn't put his finger on it. He looked up from the file to his associate, "See what else you can find about this man's current activities, and ask our agent at Langley if she can provide any additional info. I want to know if Chuck Bartowski has anything to do with the Intersect Project or what his involvement may have been in Barstow."

The man in black nodded. "One of the other two files are of one of Carmichael's employees, a Nikki Lawson, and the other is JPL Annex Station Chief, Vincent Oddo. Oddo is CIA and Lawson is NSA. Oddo is fairly well known, but there is very little info about Lawson."

Sloan rifled Nikki Lawson's file, "Damn, you're not kidding, this woman is a ghost. Curious. You're sure she's NSA?"

"Yes. And that's not all. One of our teams tried to tail her and Carmichael and his wife after they left Quinn's base yesterday. She was driving the car and she shook them off rather effortlessly about five minutes after they left."

Sloan looked up at his associate obviously angry to hear about another operational failure. "Find out where Carmichael's business is located and set up surveillance on it, and make damn sure the team doesn't get detected again. Tell our man here in L.A. we need him to dig around for any info that can be found about what's going on at the JPL Annex. Also, see if you can find any additional information about this Ms. Lawson."

The man in black nodded again. "Yes, sir."

"That will be all for now, Allen."

The man in black, Allen Preston, turned and left the room as Edgar Sloan tossed the remaining files onto his desk and turned to look out the window again.

- VI -

The tests were finally completed at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Sarah looked exhausted and Ellie had given her some rather strong pain meds and a mild sedative when they were done. Ellie pulled Chuck aside and walked with him across the room to the control console so she could have a private word with him. Chuck didn't look a whole lot better than Sarah. Partially, Ellie surmised, from the tests she had run on him, and the rest as an empathetic reaction to watching Sarah all day long. Sarah was watching them as she rested in the recliner again.

"Chuck, you need to keep a very close eye on Sarah tonight." Ellie handed her brother a bottle of meds. "If she shows any sign of some kind of adverse reaction I want you to give her one of these and call me immediately."

Chuck looked at the bottle label. More worry was creeping onto his face.

"It's a fast acting sedative, Chuck. It should suppress the Intersect if it starts to cause any problems for her. Keep it handy. And try not to worry, it's only a precaution."

"Do you think what we subjected her to today was worth it, El?" He croaked.

"I hope so little brother, I saw some interesting things on the monitors during the tests, but it'll take a couple of days to analyze all of it and cross check and correlate the data with the Iv4 team's and dad's databases. Try to be patient, okay?"

Chuck nodded back, his lips drawn tight and exhaustion showing in his eyes. Ellie gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek.

"Oh, I almost forgot. I talked to Dr. Depak while we were taking the break on the EEG's this afternoon. He says he got the data he needed and he'll have a working governor ready for Sarah in the morning. He mentioned something about an all-nighter to get it done. He wanted me to tell you not to worry, and that he was looking forward to seeing you and Sarah tomorrow."

"So he knows that we're aware he's on the team?"

"Yes, he seemed excited about talking to you, rather happy about it actually."

Chuck answered Ellie with a look of puzzlement.

"I don't know, little brother, maybe some good came out of what you had to do to Manoosh. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. You don't need this on your mind too."

"It's alright, Ellie, I'm too tired to worry about it now anyway."

Ellie smiled back at him apologetically, "Chuck, I want you to go home and order a large veggie pizza for the two of you and eat the whole thing, and drink a lot of water. And drink a couple of cups of decaf green tea also before you go to bed. That's my prescription for tonight."

He grinned at her sheepishly, "I like your idea of medicine, but you left out the beer."

"Lots of carbs, it'll help you recharge your batteries and get a good nights sleep, but sorry, no alcohol for Sarah." She hugged him again. "Now go home, I'll check on you later."

- VII -

The pizza box on the coffee table was almost empty. It turned out to be fairly easy to carry out Ellie's 'prescription' because they both found themselves to be starving by the time the pizza delivery came to their door. Now with the pizza almost consumed they were wrapped up in each other watching an episode of 'Lost' on the TV.

Sarah burped and let out a short laugh, "I'm feeling _so_ much better."

Chuck shot her an amused look, "I don't think I've ever seen you eat that much pizza in one sitting." He looked at the last piece in the box, "Flip a coin for the last slice?"

She looked back at him and puffed out her cheeks, "I think four slices is plenty, thank you very much…but if there's any ice cream in the freezer…" She gave him a very exaggerated tight-lipped smile.

"Hi-yo, O.K. I'll see what we can do about that after I'm done with this," he said as he reached for the last slice.

"You have a hollow leg."

"You're one to talk."

"Having your brain scanned all day long works up quite an appetite." She leaned over to give him a quick kiss and then stole a bite off the pizza slice he was holding in his hand.

"Hey! My, you're a sneaky one."

"It's goes with the profession," she quipped.

Chuck smiled at her as he chewed, "I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

He swallowed loudly and grinned, "Did Ellie put you up to that?"

"No, she told me I should do this," She leaned in again and gave him a very passionate kiss holding his head in her hands as he waved the pizza around trying to decide what to do with it. She finally released him from the lip lock.

"Really!" He looked at her wide-eyed, "My sister told you to do _that!_"

"Doctors orders."

"It's totally believable" He took another bite.

"Finish that so I can have my ice cream."

He took another huge bite as he got up from the couch and started to the kitchen, "Yes ma'am. Your wish is my command."

He opened the freezer door with his free hand, "Rocky Road or Mint Chip?"

"Why don't you scoop up a bowl of each and we'll share."

"That sounds like some sticky fun."

"MmHmm, yes, it does, doesn't it?" Her tone was very smoky, sultry, and suggestive.

"Just give me two seconds." He filled the bowls in record time and turned to take them to the living room and stopped abruptly in his tracks. Sarah was right there in front of him in the kitchen with a very sexy look in her eyes. She held out her open hand at about shoulder height and he placed the bowl of Rocky Road in it. She cradled the bowl where it was and placed her other hand on his chest and ran her fingertips down his chest and his abdomen finally taking her hand away just below the belt line as she gracefully brought it up to take the spoon from her bowl and grin at him.

"Oh my…" He watched her take a spoonful of the Rocky Road and take a bite of it in a way that made almost all the blood in his body rush to his head…and one other place. His mouth fell open.

Sarah took advantage of his open mouth and placed a spoon full of ice cream in it. She looked at him very suggestively and asked, "Do I get to have a bite of yours, Chuck?"

Chuck's brain locked up and he almost dropped his bowl, but he recovered and found enough presence of mind to dip the spoon and give her a bite. She did it to him again as she held his hand and helped him guide the spoon into her mouth and slowly pulled the ice cream off of it, licking the bottom of the spoon with the tip of her tongue as he pulled it away. _Oh…my…God._ He stopped breathing.

"Why don't we take this to the bedroom, sweetie," Sarah suggested in a way that made his eyes glaze over as she stroked his thigh with her free hand.

"You want to eat ice cream…in…the bedroom?" _Oh…my…_"O.K."

Eleanor Woodcomb leaned over to pick up her phone off of the coffee table when the text notification beeped. Curious. It was from Sarah. That hadn't happened in a long time. She pulled up the message and as she read it the look on her face caught Devon's attention and he leaned over and peeked at it too.

_Don't come a knockin, the house is a rockin_

Ellie started to giggle uncontrollably as Devon exclaimed "Alright, Sarah! You're back in the saddle!"

- VIII -

"There she is. She sure does come to work early." They watched from an office window across the street as a thunder gray Cadillac CTS-V pulled up to the roll up door of the basement parking garage and the door raised and lowered as the car drove through and never stopped moving.

"Were you able to scan a door opener frequency?"

"Negative, at least not a standard one. Whatever they're using is definitely not off the shelf hardware. And that door looks like it would withstand a hit from an RPG."

"Damn it," Allen Preston fumed as he realized just what a challenge they were facing trying to surveil this building. The windows had proven to be impossible. They had gold reflective film and active tinting to prevent looking into them during daylight, ultrasonic glass shakers to foil laser eavesdropping, and night shutters. There were no wireless security camera feeds to tap into and no apparent wired security cameras on the outside of the building to tap into either. Visual and optical sonic remote surveillance just wasn't going to work, except to see who came and went. They would have to get a man inside to plant bugs at the minimum, but preferably an operative inside if they were going to find out what was going on in Carmichael Industries offices.

Preston scanned the building with a thermal imager noting the apparent lack of a signature of any kind with a disgusted grunt. "What do we know about the building tenants?"

"Carmichael owns the building. His business occupies the upper two floors and the first floor is leased to a holding company that looks suspiciously like a federal government front. The first floor tenants appear to have at least ten people on the premises at all times and there are two security people in the front entrance foyer at all times."

"Shit." He started gathering the equipment he had brought with him. "Watch who comes and goes and be prepared to give me a full report when I check back this afternoon. And Fredericks," He gave one of the two men in the room a hard look, "No screw ups this time."

The man he was talking to gave him an expressionless nod of the head.

Nikki Lawson scanned the main area of the parking garage as she pulled her Cadillac into her designated spot across from the elevators and stairwell entrance. She noted that the secondary parking area's ten-by-twelve roll up door was down and the regular eight cars of the CIA and NSA employees who worked the night shift were in their normal spaces. Her eyes fell briefly onto all of the security cameras as she strode to the elevator door and scanned her Carmichael Industries I.D. badge across the entrance pad. She exited the elevator on the second floor and walked down a short hallway to the heavy secure entrance of a medium sized room with a lounge area and two vestibules off of it lined with an assortment of firearms and maintenance workstations. She walked into one of them and reached under her black leather jacket and pulled her STI 2011 Tactical 3.0 .45 caliber handgun from the shoulder holster. She dropped the double column magazine and set it on the bench in front of her and then racked the round out of the chamber into her hand and set it next to the magazine. She then quickly removed the bayonet mounted custom compensator from the end of the barrel and attached a Gemtech Blackside suppressor she pulled from under her jacket in its place.

After reloading the weapon she re-holstered it in condition one and walked through the side door onto the six stage range and picked up and placed silhouette targets on five of the runout frames twenty feet from the shooters benches, and then she took up position at one of the center stations. She quickly programmed the target frames and readied herself at the station with her hands placed on the shooters bench in front of her. Her right hand punched the button on the bench and the targets started to run out away from her at different rates ranging from a fast walk to a sprint as several cameras on the range started to record the action and time the event. She _very _swiftly drew the weapon from her holster bringing it up in a modified isosceles stance and swept the targets right to left as the gun made a rapid fire metallic double chunking sound and the bullets could be heard striking the bullet stop twenty-five yards downrange. After double-tapping the final target on the left she dropped the magazine from the gun and another was in it in a blur. She repeated the process as she swept the handgun left to right and the targets started to return back to her as she was about a third of the way across them. The last rounds had been fired and the gun was unloaded and resting on the bench in front of her before the targets even came back to a halt in front of her, and she punched the benchtop button once again to stop the timer. A satisfied smirk crossed her face as she looked at the targets, each with two rounds tightly grouped in the head and two center of body mass. The timer displayed 8.7 seconds, not her best but respectable.

Nikki decided to leave the targets as they were – for bragging rights – and left the range to clean her weapon and then go upstairs to start her morning bug-sweep.

- IX -

What an amazing dream. Ice cream and toppings, and frenzied and erotic love making on the ice cream shop counter. His eyes popped open. _What? _ He took stock of the situation as he slowly awoke. He tried to move. His hand was stuck to her belly. _Huh? _He tried to move again. Everywhere, all he could feel was sweet stickiness. Then the memory hit him like an ice cream headache. _Oh…my…Gosh, we really did this_. _Talk about making new memories…_

Sarah stirred. She could feel his warmth on her body. It was a very sticky warmth. She smiled. _Wow, that was incredible!_ _How could two people have so much fun with a bowl of ice cream? _

Their eyes met. And they giggled at each other as their hands moved to special places and stuck to them.

"I don't remember anything like this ever happening on the train from Paris to Zurich," Sarah said with an astonishingly beautiful smile on her face.

Chuck looked at her questioningly, "You remember that?"

"I dreamt about it a couple of weeks ago," and she kissed him gently as if to say good morning with her lips.

Chucks eyes locked on hers, "It was real. It happened. It is one of the best memories of my life…now it has a rival," and he smiled at her like she was the center of his universe.

"I love you, Chuck." Sarah fixed her soul on him through her eyes and sighed, "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"But it's so wonderful to hear you say it." And he wrapped himself around her like he was never going to let her go. He wondered if he was actually going to be able to let her go because they were stuck like glue in several places.

Sarah giggled at the sensation, "After a night like last night I think it would only be natural to have a long hot shower together."

- X -

Dr. Leo Dreyfus looked at the two people in front of him – check that, he'd been here before – these two were a couple again, it was very obvious, and he was a little shocked by what he was observing. This was a very good sign. If Sarah Bartowski was going to beat the situation she was in it was going to take every advantage she could muster and he knew it. He was very happy – in a clinical sense – to see what was happening between Sarah and Chuck Bartowski. He wondered what could have happened to cause such a sudden change, and it occurred to him that there were several things he could scratch off his plans for this session.

"Sarah, have you been following your doctors orders?"

She returned a curious and slightly confused look, "I don't follow you, doctor. Do you mean have I been avoiding trying to remember things?"

"Well?"

"I've discovered it's not something I seem to have a lot of control over. I meant to tell you this the other day but our session ended before I could bring it up. I've been experiencing memories manifested in the form of dreams. I didn't even make the connection until you mentioned the problems that Chuck had had with Intersect related dreams."

Chuck perked up in his chair. He hardly even heard Sarah's reference to his dreams. Instead all he could think about was her mentioning of her dream this morning. "The train trip from Paris to Zurich."

She looked at him and smiled, "It was an amazing dream, Chuck, like I was living it; very lucid, very lifelike, better than a memory. I wouldn't mind experiencing it again, not one bit." She gave his hand a squeeze and winked at him.

"Would you mind telling us more about that dream?" Asked the doctor.

Sarah almost choked and she watched as Chuck's face cracked into a huge grin, "Sorry doctor, I'm not discussing that one with anyone but Chuck."

Chuck looked at her and then to the doctor, "I remember how vivid my Intersect dreams were. At the time I experienced them they felt like reality, not a dream. That is until I analyzed them after I woke up and realized how surreal parts of them were," he looked quickly back to Sarah, "Not that I'm saying parts of your train trip dream were a fantasy, we'll have to compare notes about that."

She smiled back at him. _Yes we will!_

"When you have these dreams do you experience any pain?" asked Dr. Dreyfus as he tried to hide his smile from them.

"No, not when I'm having them. But a couple of times I woke up with what felt like a hangover."

The doctor quickly scribbled some notes on his pad. "When you think about your dreams after you wake up do you have any pain?"

"No, it's interesting that you ask that because the dreams feel like memories not something my mind conjured up, but they don't cause any pain when I think about them when I'm awake. Although when I first started to experience them I questioned whether they had any basis in reality, because when I experience memories when I'm awake they're always accompanied by an intense headache and loss of vision."

The doctor continued to make notes then asked, "Can you tell us about another one of your dreams?"

Sarah felt herself begin to flush as she thought of a couple of them. She hesitated. "I'm sorry, the personal and very emotional nature of many of them makes it difficult to talk about them."

Now Chuck gave her hand a squeeze, "It's okay, sweetie, you can tell us."

She looked at Chuck and pursed her lips. "Well, there was the one where I believe we first kissed. We were trying to diffuse a bomb and we thought we were going to die. I kissed you. I remember thinking there was no way I was going to go to my grave without kissing you at least once. I thought maybe the dream was just a fabrication of my mind from seeing myself talk about it in my mission logs. But I realized later after I thought about it that it was a very real memory…that when I kissed you it was because I had fallen in love with you. At the time I didn't understand what the emotion was I was feeling…now I do." She flushed as she said it and gave the doctor a very embarrassed look as she averted her gaze from him.

Dr. Dreyfus returned an understanding smile, "Can you tell us about one that you don't remember seeing in your mission logs?"

She thought about it for a minute. There were so many. But thinking about it now she realized that so many were also in her logs and it made her wonder if she was conjuring things up because of the logs or whether they were real memories. Then it hit her and she broke into a grin…because of the ice cream.

"I remember one where Chuck was sitting on the floor in his underwear with a guitar, an empty carton of ice cream, and a bottle of scotch." She let out a short giggle, and looked at her husband, "You mentioned how you thought a half gallon of mint chip ice cream had sobered you up…then you mentioned thinking about a question that had come to you in your drunken haze…and you asked me if I loved you. I remember thinking all I could say was 'yes' and not actually say 'I love you', how I was reluctant to face up to what I was really feeling and just say it. When I awoke from the dream it made me think more about the game of denial I was playing with my emotions. But the dream seemed so surreal, it was very conflicting."

Chuck chuckled, "As surreal as all that sounds it actually happened just the way you described it. The guitar wasn't even a real guitar, it was a game guitar for the Guitar Hero video game." Then he looked at the doctor and it was his turn to blush red.

The doctor seemed to ignore his embarrassment as he took more notes, but when he finally looked up from them and looked back at Chuck and Sarah his eyes were glittering with amusement even as his face remained stoic. "Sarah, have you had many memory flashes since we spoke on Tuesday?"

"A few. They have a way of just blindsiding me when I least expect it, but none of them were as severe as some others had been before our first session. The worst one happened shortly after I left my appointment with you. I was upstairs with Nikki Lawson in the ops center."

"Was there any disorientation associated with it?"

"Yes, after the flash in the ops center I didn't know where I was for several minutes. It was like I'd lost my memory of the previous five or ten minutes before it happened. I noticed that several times yesterday too at the research clinic."

"Have you had any Intersect flashes?"

She looked at him puzzled by the question, "I don't think so, but I don't have any memory of ever using the Intersect so I'm not sure."

The intercom buzzed on the table next to Dr. Dreyfus, "Leo, Dr. Woodcomb is here."

Leo finished the note he was scribbling on his pad and reached to punch off the privacy button, "Thank you, Gayle, please send her in."

Ellie walked into the office carrying a small black plastic case, "Doctor Dreyfus it's very nice to see you. Thank you for letting me join you today. I hope these two are being cooperative?"

"As cooperative as couple of trained spies can be," he smiled mildly, "actually these are two of my best patients, Dr. Woodcomb, and if this session has been anything, it has been entertaining."

Sarah and Chuck exchanged incredulous looks.

The doctor looked at Chuck and Sarah with his trademark stoic smile, "Relax, and let an old man enjoy the moment. I'm very optimistic about what the both of you have been saying." He looked back to Ellie. "I trust that you have brought the governor with you?"

Ellie held out the plastic case, "This is it." She opened the case and removed a slightly oversize but very elegant looking woman's gold watch. "It's Gucci," she grinned.

She looked at Sarah questioningly, "Are you ready to try this?"

Sarah looked at the watch and then at the one she was already wearing.

"You can get rid of that one for the time being. I was instructed to tell you that this one also has a sixty channel agile frequency encrypted vox transceiver and a synchronized frequency jumping GPS tracker beacon. It has a kinetic generator but it will still have to be charged daily, especially if you use the transceiver or the tracker. It's a mod 6, the one you're wearing is a mod 4. We'll have a couple of backups for you in a few days."

"Wow, El, I'm impressed, your nerdish is getting quite good," Chuck quipped.

Ellie smirked at her brother as Sarah took off her old watch and then Ellie reached over to wrap the new one around Sarah's wrist. As soon as the clasp connected Sarah could feel a tingle on her skin underneath the watchcase that reverberated up her arm and then throughout her entire body. When it reached her head it suddenly felt like someone had opened a pressure release valve in her skull and she was overcome by an overwhelming sense of relief.

Chuck watched her reaction with relief of his own. He could see what was happening to his wife and knew exactly what she was experiencing because he had been there himself. "It's working, El, I can tell."

"Oh, good. I'm glad to hear it. Dr. Depak was extremely optimistic about it when I saw him this morning. He wanted me to tell you he's working on an updated version that he believes will be up to thirty percent more effective. He's asking for another five days to complete it."

Dr. Dreyfus was watching Sarah very closely and started to make notes again. "How are you doing, Sarah? Are you feeling anything that you would describe as uncomfortable?"

"I'm not sure doctor, it's definitely not uncomfortable, it's more like euphoric. This may take a bit to get used to," she responded.

"Don't worry, Babe, it should even out over the course of several hours. It does seem to have a narcotic effect when it first kicks in."

She grinned at Chuck, "I'm liking it so far," she giggled.

Dr. Dreyfus scribbled furiously on his notepad. "Sarah, I want you to take note of everything you're experiencing and log all of it. Have Chuck help you do it if you think it will help. Everything you tell us about what is going on in your head will be crucial to how we decide to proceed from this point forward, am I making myself clear?"

Sarah grasped the seriousness of his request and schooled her expression, "Yes, doctor, I understand. I know what is at stake here."

"Good. But don't let the gravity of the situation get to you. To borrow a 1960's euphemism from my generation, 'just go with the flow', it'll help you stay grounded and self analyze more effectively. We'll all be meeting again in a couple of days to see where we are and decide how we are going to proceed. In the meantime, stay close to your husband and share everything with him. I can't overstress how critical Chuck's analysis will influence the decisions we will have to make going forward."

"Above all else I'll trust my family, Dr Dreyfus." Sarah looked at Chuck with a stark realization of just how connected their lives had become. It suddenly dawned on her that beyond all that they once had and were now rapidly regaining they also shared a connection no other couple on the planet possessed…they both had the Intersect.

"Then I think we're done here for today," said Leo Dreyfus

As they all started to rise from their seats Chuck placed his hand on Sarah's arm, "Sarah, I need to talk to Dr. Dreyfus, can you give me a couple of minutes?"

Sarah gave Chuck a curious look and nodded as she reached over and gave his hand a squeeze, it was time to trust implicitly, and she knew it. She and Ellie walked out to the waiting room to wait for him.

Before Sarah and Ellie had even left the room Leo Dreyfus began to speak, "How is the version 3 Intersect working out for you Chuck? Have you noticed any major differences between it and the previous version you had?"

Chuck stood there for a few seconds with his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets, "You know, Doc, I haven't really given it a lot of thought, but yeah, there do seem to be some big differences between them. I haven't flashed that much since the concert hall incident so I hadn't given it much consideration until you just asked me. This whole thing with Sarah has completely preoccupied my mind the last several weeks, I haven't really thought about much else."

"That's fairly understandable, Chuck." Dreyfus looked him in the eye, with a perceptive nod of his head, "What Sarah went through has been very hard on the both of you. Your psychological profile predisposes you toward a probably unhealthy amount of empathy, especially in this particular circumstance because of the emotional attachment you and Sarah share." He raised his hand to his chin thoughtfully for a moment before his eyes returned to Chuck questioningly, "Do you think the emotional turmoil of this event has caused your Intersect to be suppressed?"

"No, I don't think so, Doctor. If I want to flash on a particular Intersect skill set I can do it relatively easily, but I have noticed that it happens much faster and less violently than it did with 2.0, and I retain the information longer. Sometimes it feels like I don't forget some of it at all."

Dreyfus raised an eyebrow, "So you're retaining some of it?"

"Yes, is that important?"

"Very, it's one of the key things your sister has been working on with Iv4. The brain scans we've been doing on you and Sarah may shed some more light on how this works. The team is currently building tomographic models towards that end. This is promising news. Chuck, I want you to spend some time thinking about just what differences you are seeing from this 'upgrade'. Also compare notes with Sarah, and watch her closely. The governor may start to unsuppress her Intersect, we need to know if she experiences a real flash instead of one of these memory flashes she's been having."

"Okay, Doc, I'll do that. Should I be concerned about it if Sarah has a flash? Could it be dangerous to her?"

"We don't know, Chuck, that's why it's very important that you pay close attention to her if she does. Physical discomfort seems to be a very good indicator of possible damaging effects. Call Ellie or me immediately if you see anything that looks serious."

Chuck's mouth spread into a taught line as he nodded, "Okay, Doc, I'll pay close attention. But actually there was something else I wanted to talk you about when I asked to see you privately."

"What is it Chuck?"

Chuck pulled his hands that had been jammed in his pockets out and unfolded his right hand revealing the wedding bands that Nikki Lawson had palmed to him two nights before when she had dropped Sarah and him off at his car. He held them out for Leo to see.

Leo looked at them and a look of realization crossed his face as he grasped Chuck's hand and looked at the rings. "I was wondering about those. What happened to them? It was very obvious to me that Sarah has been missing them. I was going to ask you if you knew what had happened to them."

"Quinn took them from her when he tortured her and suppressed her memories. I recovered them at his safehouse."

"I see."

"Doctor…I want to give them back to her…is it safe to do it?"

The doctor looked away for a moment with a look of deep reflection on his face, then he looked back into his young patient's eyes and said, "My boy, I think the rewards far outweigh the risks."

* * *

**A/N **Thanks for reading, I always appreciate a review. - Mac


	7. Act 6

**A/N **5/5/12 - Starting to get caught up here on the chapters I have already written. I'd like to get two more posted before things start to get crazy for me in a couple of weeks but things are already starting to pile up as I write this. Maybe there will be some time to work on it a bit while I'm away from home, but no guarantees.

If any of you pay close attention to the declassified scenes from the series you'll see a reference to one in this chapter. If you see it, tell me, and let me know you're paying attention.

Thanks to **uplink2 **for having a look at this chapter and offering some very salient suggestions for making it closer to what I'd like it to achieve – I never can seem to get quite to the point where I'm satisfied with it, but at some point the 'submit chapter' button has to be clicked. And many thanks to you my readers for posting reviews, adding this story to your favorites or alert list, and the PM's of encouragement to carry this, my first major fiction project, to a satisfying conclusion. Those reviews and messages are potent fuel for a beginning fiction writer like me and they are powerful motivators, I appreciate it very much.

**I don't own Chuck**…but sometimes it feels like these stories may own me a bit. Is that a good thing?

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 6**

Chuck pulled his car into his regular parking spot in front of the elevator next to Nikki's Cadi. As they got out of the car Sarah looked around the parking garage and noticed there were four more additional parking spots in the separate area of the garage where Chuck and Nikki's cars were parked facing away from the elevators.

"Is one of these spaces mine?"

"Yes." He gestured to the stall at the end on the right side of his Lotus, "That one. Of course if you'd rather park in one of the other spots you can have your pick."

Sarah didn't miss the symbolism of his choice of parking spots for her, and she smiled with amusement, "I like that one."

She walked around the car and trapped him against the side of it as she looked up at him, and then shrugged her shoulder towards Nikki's car, "What if I wanted that one?"

Chuck rolled his eyes, "Your first day here and you want to start a turf war with the VP of Operations?"

Sarah grinned at him and gave him a quick peck, "Probably not a good idea is it?"

"Pulling rank? Probably not. But I'm sure Nikki wouldn't mind making it the subject of a wager, she seems to be pretty competitive."

"I think I better size up the competition a bit more before I start to make bets."

"Sound thinking," he acknowledged, and he grabbed her hand and headed toward the elevator, "C'mon let me show you the offices, I think you're going to like them."

They exited the elevator on the third floor and stepped into the granite floored entry foyer that was divided from the large reception area by a glass wall and doors with the Carmichael Industries logo on it. Nikki Lawson was sitting at a large desk beyond the entry.

"Hello, Boss, Sarah," she greeted, "I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to see you again."

"Hi Nikki. I hope you aren't getting lonely here, this place looks a little deserted." Sarah said as she looked around the reception area taking in the ambiance of the place, and then she placed her hands on her hips and looked at her husband. "Chuck, what is the VP of Operations doing greeting clients?"

Nikki noted Sarah's tone and posture and smiled, "We're currently trying to resolve some staffing problems," she answered diplomatically, "I should be able to move into my luxurious new office in a few days."

Chuck returned the Bartowski smile to Nikki, "I suppose you want the corner one with the private bathroom and the wetbar?"

"No, no, I'll let you keep your flamboyant digs," she sneered playfully back at him, "my tastes run a little bit more toward the understated." She glanced quickly at Sarah noticing her reaction to the way Chuck smiled at her.

"I can't wait to see what you do with the place," he replied enthusiastically.

"I'll try to keep it tasteful, but I'm also accepting decorating suggestions if you have any, Sarah," she said, looking at her with an amicable smile, "I hear you have quite an eye for design, it's not exactly one of my strong points." Nikki shifted in her seat at the desk as she tried to read the cryptic look on Sarah's face. She quickly shifted her gaze back to Chuck, "Speaking of what I'll be doing to my own office, hold on to your hat, Boss, I think you're going to be surprised by what's happened around here since Monday; and by the way, there are contractors in the server room, try not to trip over them."

"O.K., _now_ you've peaked my curiosity." Chuck looked back at Sarah who he finally noticed had been closely watching the exchange between Nikki and him. "Sounds like we both get to see something new, shall we take a look around?" He offered her his hand and they turned right and walked into a broad hallway connecting to the reception area and began the tour. Nikki let a subtle amused smile appear on her face and turned back to the work on her computer.

He gestured to the right into a large room with computers, electronics equipment, workbenches, test benches, and project tables. "One of our two labs." Then he pointed to the left side of the hall, "Offices on this side, I'm thinking Nikki might want the one down at the end." Sarah looked down the hallway trying to see into the office he was talking about without making a show of it. Then as they walked down the hallway he pointed to the right again, "This is the computer lab." Beyond the glass wall was a nerds paradise of workstations and benches with parts storage underneath them, and beyond that behind another glass wall was a room full of servers in nineteen inch racks and several technicians busy at work on them with half of the false floor panels pulled up. It looked like controlled pandemonium.

Sarah turned quickly back from the office she was looking in and looked into the computer lab and nodded with a smile, "That's really something, Chuck. I can only imagine how excited you must be. Quite the toy box."

"Oh, yeah, nerd nirvana." He beamed at her as he walked down the hall backwards and gestured towards the end of it with his thumb, "And down here is going to be the War Room." He stopped dead in his tracks as he reached the hallway portal and looked into the room. His jaw dropped.

"Wow," Sarah exclaimed.

"Yeah…wow. None of this was here on Monday."

The War Room looked complete. Eight computer workstations occupied the center of the room in an open arrangement, the only partitions being the banks of large monitors that surrounded them. Over the workstations several very large screens hung from the ceiling. To the right of them two very large double-sided haptic monitors formed partitions between the workstations in the War Room and the large arched entries of two offices beyond them. To the right of the offices was a large conference room with a table that could seat twenty. And next to it behind glass walls was the server room they had previously seen from beyond the computer lab.

"Very impressive Chuck, I can't wait to see the electric bill."

"Hi-yo, yeah, it's going to be a whopper," he chuckled and then stepped to the right, "C'mon let me show you something."

They stepped through the right hand office doorway into a very large and very elegant looking office with a large L shaped desk with large triple monitors on the return and a credenza behind it. The back wall was windowed like the ones in the War Room. There was also a very comfortable looking leather executive chair behind the desk. A round worktable was off to the left with four chairs. Beyond it was a doorway that looked like it led to the other office through a short hallway and in the corner next the door was a small wetbar. A leather L shaped sofa and a coffee table were off to the right of the entry and in front of it were two leather-upholstered armchairs that could be turned to face the sofa or the desk. There was an entrance to a private bath on the right side of the room beyond the sofa end table. A bookcase occupied the wall on the other side of the bathroom door. The walls were still bare of any pictures, but a couple of framed pictures from their wedding were sitting on the credenza.

"This a very nice office you have here, Chuck."

"It's not my office…it's yours. I hope you like the décor. We tried to match it to the architecture, but I know you like a more contemporary look. Feel free to make changes if you want."

She turned quickly to him and locked her eyes on his, at first looking surprised, and then turning thoughtful as she gazed at him for several seconds, "You weren't going to give up on me, were you?" Her eyes became a little misty.

"No. No, that was never an option."

"Then why did you stop calling me?"

He let his eyes show a flash of sadness to her that he quickly replaced with simple and patient understanding, "I was going through a bit of a rough period, I hadn't given up on you, but I couldn't let it be about what I wanted."

Sarah stepped to him and grabbed his hand as she placed her other hand on his chest over his heart, "I should have thought more about what I was putting you through. I didn't consider enough how heart wrenching all of this must have been for you. I'm sorry, Chuck."

"It's alright. You needed to decide your own path. All I could do was hope that you would eventually see I was on that same path with you. Now you're here, so let's just put that behind us."

They fell into an embrace and just as their lips were about to touch…

"Um, Boss?" They turned to see Nikki standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but you have a guest."

Towering over Nikki's shoulder in the doorway was Colonel John Casey, and he hadn't missed a thing. He had a tight grin on his face to prove it.

Time stood still.

"Casey!" Chuck quickly stepped towards him and extended his hand, "It's good to see you, buddy."

They exchanged a firm four-handed handshake, probably about as intimate as John Casey would get with another man under most circumstances. "It's good to see you too, Bartowski, you look well." He looked back over his shoulder and then back into the office they were standing in. "Nice place you have here."

"You know who these offices used to belong to don't you?"

Casey looked at Nikki Lawson briefly and a very controlled smile crossed his face for an instant, "Yeah, I've been told."

Casey looked from Chuck to Sarah and he regarded her appraisingly, "How are you Walker? Did you finally come to your senses and get in touch with your lady feelings again?"

"I'm fine, Casey, but I wish I knew more about what the last five years has done for me and you," she said guardedly. The disadvantage that her memory loss was causing between Casey and her was a little disconcerting.

"Maybe we can talk about it sometime over a few drinks, maybe more than a few." His face was stoic, but he had a sparkle in his eye, "Or maybe we could just discuss it in the dojo."

"That might be fun, maybe we should," she answered with a smirk.

Chuck watched the exchange and decided to change the subject. "I see you came alone, Casey, where is Gertrude?"

Casey shifted his stoic gaze back to Chuck, "She decided to hang out by the pool at the hotel. But she wants us all to have dinner there later tonight, are you game?" And he looked at Sarah questioningly.

"I am," Sarah answered agreeably.

Chuck grinned at her and Casey, "O.K. it sounds like a plan, although, Sarah and I have to go to Castle this afternoon first. Would you mind coming too, Casey? There's someone on Ellie's research team I'd like your opinion about."

"*Hunm*, that's all you're going to tell me?"

"Yeah, I think I'll keep the rest of it a surprise, knowing how you like surprises."

"Uh, huh," Casey responded with narrowing eyes, "It better be a good one."

Chuck grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets, "I was just giving Sarah a tour of the place, would you like to see the rest of it with us?"

"I've got nothing better to do at the moment, lead on. By the way, which one of these offices is mine?"

- II -

Team Bartowski stepped out of the elevator on the second floor into a foyer with a hallway leading left and the entry to a large room straight ahead. Chuck lead them into a large area that could be best described as a recreation room. There was a kitchen area with a bar to their right with seating and dining tables beyond and some Arcade games in an alcove beyond the cozy seating area. The Missile Command game that Chuck had once beaten to the killscreen to obtain the override codes that kept a city from being nuked was among the games, along with several other Atari legacy games surrounding it. A regulation pool table occupied one side of the room and there was a large dance floor that adjoined mirrors along one of the walls with a ballet barre along it on the far side of the room.

Chuck pointed to the ballet barre. "Nikki used to study ballet, so I did that for her."

Sarah looked at her husband and unconsciously crossed her arms over her chest as she studied the look on his face.

Casey scrutinized the two of them carefully and softly grunted, "I'm starting to wonder about this…Nikki…"

"What's to wonder about? She found you, didn't she?" Retorted Chuck.

"Kind of my point, numbnuts," Casey leveled his gaze at Sarah, "Are you okay, Walker? Are you feeling a little threatened?"

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him and gave him the stink eye, "Very funny, Casey. I don't let a pretty face make me feel threatened," she deflected, but she was still obviously curious about what Casey was saying. "Tell me, what are _your_ concerns about Nikki?"

"There's obviously much more to that young woman than just a pretty face, but let's just say she seems unusually focused," he said as he smirked back at her.

"Well, okay," Chuck said sheepishly, as the direction the conversation was taking finally sank in, "Why don't continue the tour, shall we?" He glanced at Sarah as they walked across the room and she returned the look with her spy face on in a way the caused him to tense.

Casey very subtly smirked at him.

They stepped through another doorway into a full gym and a very large and open martial arts dojo connected to a full partitioned bath with showers and storage lockers. The dojo had storage racks for an assortment of weapons that fit a wide variety of fighting disciplines, and there were several striking dummies and shelves for gloves and striking pads. Both Casey and Sarah took it all in with very approving expressions on their faces.

"I think I could get used to the idea of working here," exclaimed Casey, "Nikki mentioned something about an indoor shooting range?"

Chuck gave him the Bartowski smile, "Follow me and prepare to be impressed."

They walked out of the recreation and training area and down the short hallway that led from the elevator. Chuck swiped his I.D. badge across the scan pad and they entered into the lounge area of the shooting range. Casey looked into the weapons and maintenance alcoves and turned to look at Chuck approvingly.

"Very impressive, Chuck, how many of these toys have _you_ played with?"

"All of them Casey, shooting paper and steel is a whole lot easier than shooting a real person."

"*Humng*"

Sarah looked at Chuck with a sense of intangible apprehension that she couldn't place. For some odd reason the idea of Chuck handling firearms was making her feel uncomfortable and she remembered the heated discussion she and Chuck had had through the cell walls in Castle after he had shot down Casey's helicopter in Berlin. How the thought of Chuck killing someone was so revolting to her and that she never wanted him to have to do it because she feared it would change him in irreparable ways. The sound of Chuck's voice snapped her back to the present.

"Follow me, I'll show you the range," said Chuck.

They walked through the double-doorway into the shooting range. Casey looked at the range area and quickly assessed the layout. There was enough room here to set up situational shooting scenarios and the doorway to a storage area full of shooting stage props confirmed his suspicion with sanction. Then his eye caught the targets hanging from the target frames still hanging in the range.

"Who did _that_?"

They all looked at the silhouette targets hanging from the frames. Damn, whoever had done that shooting, well, it was impressive. The shot grouping on every one of the targets was almost identical.

"Well, I didn't do it," Chuck said as he stepped over to the range video station and checked the records, "I'm not sure if I could do that even with the Intersect."

He pulled up the most recent range video from the archives and they all watched dumbfounded as Nikki Lawson double-tapped five moving targets with a suppressed large caliber handgun in about eight seconds…twice. The video was very short, so Chuck ran it several times from different camera angles as they all watched Nikki's speed and almost flawless form.

"Wow, what kind of a gun is that?" Asked Sarah as she leaned closer to the screen trying to get a better look at it, "I want one."

"Yeah, me too. Holy smack," Casey exclaimed, as he looked back and forth between Chuck and Sarah, "Who the hell did you hire, Bartowski?"

- III -

She stared at the decrypted email message on the screen. A sigh escaped her lips as she thought of the implications of what she was being told to do, and the possible implications if she decided to refuse. Over five years ago she had become a deep cover agent for Fulcrum. She had been recruited by a close associate of Ted Roark and had met the charismatic man on several occasions over the years while doing Agency business in various parts of the country. He was a sexual predator, and he had taken advantage of the situation by threatening to expose her involvement with his organization almost from the beginning.

It was revolting. She quickly regretted ever deciding to join the group but the enticement of large sums of money that kept appearing in an offshore account set up for her had kept her willing and compliant. Besides, in five years she'd never been asked to do anything that would be considered espionage and during that time all that had been required of her was occasionally putting up with Ted Roark's disgusting hands on her body…until now.

Hearing that Ted Roark had been killed by one of his own agents as damage control had made her think that it was over. The money had stopped showing up in her Cayman account long ago and no one had contacted her in over two years, until yesterday. Now she stared at the assignment she was being given out of the blue and it made her hands shake uncontrollably. She was being told to access very compartmented information on two CIA agents and an NSA agent. Information that even with her access level was going to be very hard to obtain. If she were caught doing this she would be put away for good. The choices that she now had were bad or worse. Why did she ever agree to do this?

She walked over to her closet, and pulled out a small travel bag and hastily started to pack it.

- IV -

Casey looked into the rearview mirror of his Crown Victoria scanning the road behind them, then his eyes went to Chuck in the backseat. "So why are we going to Castle again?"

"We're supposed to talk to some of the Intersect Version 4 research team that is also working on trying to help Sarah. They're using the secure research lab at Castle to do hardware design and integration with the data Ellie and her team acquired from tests on Sarah and I yesterday."

"*Hmn*" He looked over at Sarah sitting in the front seat with him and gave her a disgusted look, "Dammit, Walker, I wish you had never downloaded that God-forsaken thing."

She fidgeted almost imperceptibly in her seat, "I don't even remember downloading it, let alone why I did it, Casey, so I'm not going to argue with you about it now."

He kept his gaze on the road ahead. "We were in a very bad spot at the time. I literally screamed at you not to do it."

"I wish I had listened."

"Roger that," he said glancing her way.

Casey checked the mirror again, and Chuck caught his eye. He noted the sadness hiding there with some curiosity. Casey had developed a soft spot for his teammates over the last five years, something Chuck had once thought would never be possible. His concern for Sarah touched a spot in Chuck's heart that he knew he would probably never be able to discuss with Casey without being severely rebuffed. "So, Casey, have you given any thought about coming back to work with us? We could sure use a guy like you around the office."

"*Hng*, Are you sure about that? Looks to me like you've already hired a replacement for me."

Chuck exchanged another brief look with Casey in the mirror and then looked out the side window, "Believe me, I had no idea Nikki was so multi-talented."

"I suspect there is a lot about your new employee that doesn't meet the eye. Her leaving those targets and that video on the range couldn't have been an accident."

"What are you getting at, John?" Sarah inquired.

He glanced at her like he knew she had the answer already, "She tipped her hand. She wants us to know what she's about."

"If she was undercover, why would she do that?" Asked Chuck. He was now asking himself even more questions.

"Probably because she doesn't want to be, Chuck," said Sarah thoughtfully, "Where did you find her?"

"She was an analyst at Fort Meade. She came highly recommended by the Director of Science and Technologies' Field Resources Unit."

Sarah perked up, "Digital Dave O'Conner? I've worked with him before; he's a pretty smart cookie. I can't see him getting involved in anything nefarious."

"Fort Meade, huh?" Casey grunted again, "There is no way that that woman is just an analyst. Have you ever flashed on her Bartowski?"

"No, _Casey, _I haven't, not once."

"*Hunmg*" Casey once again locked eyes with Chuck in the mirror, "Chuck I'll come back to work for you with one condition, and it's non-negotiable."

"What's that?"

"That you let me thoroughly vet Nikki Lawson."

Chuck and Casey studied each other in the mirror for several seconds. It unnerved Chuck the way that Casey could do that and still keep the car squarely in the lane. "Okay, John, that sounds fair to me. I trust you'll be discreet about it of course." He frowned a little as he thought about Casey's concept of the word 'discretion'. "I'd actually like you to screen all of our new employees before they come on board, and keep an ongoing but discreet security overview going once we start to ramp the business up. Security is going to be very important for our company going forward. By the way, have you seen anyone back there?"

"I'm impressed, Bartowski. After five years you finally seem to be catching on. No, no one is tailing us."

- V -

"I miss the yogurt shop," said Casey nostalgically.

"Really?" asked Sarah skeptically. "I'm trying to take some comfort in the fact I don't have many memories of my cover jobs." She saw Chuck's expression turn somber. "Though, there are some memories about them I'd like to have back," she corrected as her eyes apologetically met Chucks.

"Hmn, You probably don't remember, but those frozen yogurt machines would make a quick and convenient ice pack," said Casey.

Chuck felt his smile return as he wondered who had thought up that original use for frozen yogurt, Sarah or Casey. "We decided we needed an entrance to Castle that had less public exposure, so we said goodbye to the yogurt shop."

"Makes sense, but _Cobra? _Doesn't that moron Grimes have a big enough head already?"

"Easy Casey, Morgan has been coming into his own, his Aikido is getting pretty good."

"*HMng*, we'll just have to see about that."

They stepped down the stairway leading into Castle into the center of bustling activity none of them had seen here before. Ellie saw them and broke away from eight other people around the conference table to go greet them. "John Casey, how have you been?" She gave him a hug that caused him to tense as he tentatively hugged her back and patted her shoulder and Chuck and Sarah to smile in amusement.

"I'm good Ellie…but that'll be enough of that." He attempted to extricate himself, "How is your little girl?"

She stepped back a little surprised and then grinned at him after she realized what he had done, "Very clever, John, asking about family like that. Clara is fine, she misses her 'Uncle John'."

"*Hmmg*" As Casey's eyes smiled back at Ellie, Sarah looked at them with curious amusement. She was still trying to get used to Ellie's affectionate streak herself, and watching Casey try to deal with it was comical.

Chuck then broke the levity with a question. He was feeling impatient about the purpose of their visit, "Where is Manoosh, Ellie?"

Casey's eyes quickly hardened as they shot over to Chuck. "What?"

"Yeah, that's why I wanted you here. I wanted you to see this, I need your detached judgment about it."

"Detached, huh? Don't know if that's possible, Bartowski."

"Well, I still want your opinion," answered Chuck.

Ellie looked cautiously back and forth between the two men then to Sarah. "Dr. Depak is in the fabrication lab. Follow me."

"Doctor?" asked Casey incredulously.

They walked down the hall and entered another secure area requiring a palm scanner for access. As they walked through the doors a bearded Manoosh Depak looked up from a magnifying scope and held his hand up, "STOP! Don't take another step closer!" He quickly threw a microfiber polishing rag onto the Flashcards spread over the tabletop and turned the light off on the magnifying scope. "I'm sorry, Chuck and Sarah, please turn around so I can put these away."

Ellie turned and grabbed them by their elbows and abruptly turned them around facing away from the table. Manoosh then started to gather up the cards and place them into their case. "I'm so sorry, if I'd have known you would be coming in here I would have had these stored away in a safe place."

Once all the cards were gathered Manoosh walked over to a code and optical key activated wall safe and placed the case in it as he removed a couple of other objects from it. "Okay, it's safe now, but that was close. That would have not been the proper way to greet you after all these years. Please come in now and have a seat, I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

There was a very uncomfortable moment for Chuck and Sarah as they turned back around and looked at the man smiling evenly at them and they hesitated. Casey stood back out of the way and closely observed the scene. Chuck had had to place Manoosh Depak into protective custody three years ago and now here he was standing before them. It had been a terrible moment for Chuck doing something to another man that he had almost had done to himself by the CIA all those years before. He just didn't know what to say to Manoosh, and he never thought he would actually see him again.

Manoosh broke the silence. "I believe I know what you're thinking, Chuck. You're probably asking yourself if you can trust a man that you had thrown into a bunker three years ago and why I would want to have anything to do with helping you."

Chuck had spent some time reflecting on the day he had been forced to make that decision and he thought he knew what needed to be said now, but this man could have been him under not so different circumstances, he was still at a loss for words. "Yes I am wondering about it. I'm sorry Manoosh, but you gave me no choice, I wish things could have been different. I didn't want to have to do what I did to you."

"I know, Chuck. At least I know it now. A person can learn a lot about circumstances and other peoples motivations once they're given access to the information that casts the light of day on them."

Chuck raised his eyebrows, "How much _do_ you know, Manoosh?"

He gave Chuck and Sarah a knowing look, "Pretty much all of it. We share the same clearance. And I know the whole story about how you became the first human Intersect, about your father and his research, the trouble you had with version 2.0 and having to use a governor, how others were trying to steal it and use if for less than honorable purposes, and now Sarah's unfortunate experience with it. All of it, Chuck."

"I'm surprised."

"Yeah, considering what I had gotten myself into with my own Intersect design and how close I came to selling something on the open arms market that could have been abused so terribly, it's a wonder anyone ever thought I could be trusted with this."

"You're a genius, Manoosh, sometimes raw talent has a way of reopening doors we never thought would open for us again."

"Thank you for saying that, Chuck. You know, I spent a while in that bunker consumed with anger until a friend of yours came to me and offered to give me another chance to make something good from the predicament I had put us in. I accepted an offer to finish my degree and get my doctorate, and it reopened those doors you spoke of. I was offered a job on this project and it got me out of that bunker and gave me an opportunity to build some trust. Your sister saw what I was doing and insisted I be given what I needed to get things done; I've been on her team ever since. I owe you, Eleanor, and General Beckman a debt of gratitude. Looking at where I am now I wouldn't trade those three years for anything."

"It sounds like I may have one more thing to thank Diane Beckman for."

"She knew what a hard decision that was for you, Chuck. She really didn't want to make you have to make it, considering how you almost ended up with a similar fate."

Manoosh scratched his pointed beard at the end of his chin and let his gaze fall thoughtfully on all the people standing in the room and finally let his eyes come back to rest on Chucks. "Anyway, I want you to know that there are no hard feelings. And I'm very excited to be here. Even more excited to be given the opportunity to help Sarah. It's important to me, Chuck, I want to help."

"Can you and the Iv4 team help Sarah, Manoosh? Can the Ring Intersect be removed? Can she get her memories back?" Asked Chuck hopefully.

Manoosh let his eyes fall on Sarah's and he held them as he spoke to her, "Yes, I think we can help you Sarah. You never really lost your memories as you've been discovering, a corrupted Intersect program is just suppressing them. However, I don't believe we will be able to remove the Ring Intersect per say. We don't know enough about the original Ring program, and the fact that Nicholas Quinn succeeded in essentially corrupting the data makes removal all the more difficult. I do believe however that we might be able to overwrite it with the new Iv4 program and possibly remove Iv4 if the download works without any hitches. I'll keep pursuing the possibility of removing the Ring intersect, but right now it seems to be the least viable of the options available to us. In the meantime we'll keep using and improving the governor to keep the Ring programming stable and buy the time needed to get Iv4 ready."

Sarah looked a little alarmed by what she was hearing. The idea of downloading another Intersect was not what she had expected or wanted to hear. "What about my memories, Manoosh? Will I ever get them back? Are you saying I may never be free from the Intersect?"

"If we can overwrite the corrupted Ring Intersect I'm very convinced that you'll be able to access your suppressed memories again. Whether or not you'll ever be completely free of at least some Intersect programming of some sort? Right now I don't know, and it would be unfair of me to tell you otherwise."

"Fair enough, Doctor, thank you for your candor…and Manoosh?" He looked back at her questioningly, "I trust you."

"I'll try my best to keep that trust, Sarah."

"How far away is the team from being able to implement Iv4?" Asked Chuck, "And what can I do to help?"

Manoosh scratched the hair on his chin again; "Trying to place a timeframe on this is a little difficult at the moment. I'm still working on a few hardware and image encoding integration issues. That's why I had the flashcards out when you came in. I think we were accidentally able to get something useful to the project from them. I'm currently working on a holographic method to compress the image encoding three dimensionally so it can be downloaded faster and with much less stress on the brain."

"We're going to need a few more days to correlate the data from the tests we gave to you and Sarah, little brother," said Ellie, "We think that if we can tailor the visual encoding to your individual brain physiologies we'll have a better chance of getting a complete transfer without corruption or data loss, and we'll have some software work for you to start on tomorrow."

Sarah looked at Manoosh and Ellie with a growing sense of alarm as she realized what they were saying, "Are you telling us you're preparing a download for Chuck too?" She gave her husband a look of intense apprehension and his face suddenly started to show he too was now catching on to what was said.

"Waitwaitwaitwait, you want me to upgrade again? Jeez, Ellie, isn't three Intersect downloads enough for one lifetime?"

"Chuck, there's a very good reason for it," replied Ellie patiently, "Iv4 promises to be what dad was trying all those years to achieve, and it will be much safer in my opinion for you to download it instead of keeping version 3. Iv4 is the most advanced and stable version of the Intersect and it will have the least impact on your brain. It will also be the easiest to remove if we decide that is ultimately the best course of action."

Chuck looked down at his feet and exhaled forcibly before looking back up at Sarah, and then to Ellie and Manoosh. "Okay, I'll plan on being here first thing in the morning to do what I can to help, but just so you know, I'm going to go through the code line by line. I want some sense of control in what we're doing here."

"That's very reasonable, Chuck," said Manoosh, "I'm looking forward to working on the code with you, and you'll have full access to the other workstation in my lab."

"Thank you, Dr. Depak. Then I guess we'll be seeing you in the morning."

"I'll be here at five," said Manoosh with a grin.

"Yoiks! Do you ever sleep?"

"I'll sleep after this project is done and Sarah is free of the Ring Intersect."

Casey nodded where he was standing in the back of the room. No one heard the quiet grunt, but him.

As they walked up the stairs to the exit Chuck took Sarah's hand and said, "I hope you'll be okay with hanging out with a couple of coding nerds for a few days, the air may get a little bit thick in here."

Sarah grinned back at him and gave his hand a squeeze. "I'll find a way to stay busy, I still have a new edition of Angry Birds that I haven't had a chance to play."

- VI -

Edgar Sloan sat at his computer watching a video of Charles Carmichael and his wife getting into a 1980's model Ford Crown Victoria parked at the entrance of Carmichael's office building in Pasadena. "Did you have them tailed, Allen?" He asked into his cell phone.

"No sir the man driving the car is Colonel John Casey. He's a very seasoned NSA operative. I couldn't consider trying to tail him without at least a four-car team. We didn't have the assets in place to do that."

Sloan wiped his hand over his face in exasperation, "Very well, what else do we know about John Casey?"

"He was the agent that was working the protective detail with Sarah Walker for several years. Apparently he went to work for Carmichael after he left the NSA several months ago."

"That's odd. I'm seeing too many coincidences here. Have you been able to get any intel about what Carmichael is up to in those offices of his?" Sloan was beginning to sense something larger than met the eye.

"There are a lot of contractors going in and out of Carmichael's building right now. We're going to try to get one of our people in as a SofTech employee. That should allow us to get some sort of electronic surveillance in place at the least. Regular external surveillance is proving difficult, the building is as tight as a drum. We'll try to get some trackers planted on a couple of vehicles and then start to tail some of these people. I need more back channel information if you can get it."

Sloan thought about that request. They hadn't heard back from their Langley contact, however the embedded agent in the L.A. office had checked in and started collecting information. "I should have more info for you regarding Carmichael in a day or so, Preston. Our agent is starting to dig around at the CIA JPL Annex. In the meantime step up the surveillance and see if we can't find out where some of these people live we may have to start applying some pressure to find out where the tech has been located. Call me if you get any more information we can use here."

"Yes sir." The call disconnected.

Edger Sloan scowled at his computer monitor. Why was John Casey associated with the private security business of the husband of his former partner? How did Charles Carmichael aka Chuck Bartowski know these two agents and why did Sarah Walker marry him? He needed answers. He realized he was going to have to activate his one last agent at Langley since it appeared likely that his first choice had decided to go off-grid. His last asset was rather high up the food chain and he was reluctant to activate him because of it, but it looked now like he had no choice. He pulled up a pre-prepared encrypted message on his email client and sent it off to a non-descript webmail account.

- VII -

Sarah stood in the closet doorway looking at the clothes hanging within it. She was trying to find something to wear to dinner tonight with John and Gertrude but she kept getting distracted by the very fact that all these clothes were even hanging here for her to choose from. What an amazing transformation had happened to her since she had met Chuck and fallen into this new life. The evidence of it was all around her, and the more she saw of it the more her sense of exploration to learn more about it overtook her. She pulled a pair of very slim fitting jeans from a hanger and held them up in front of her. Well, some things never changed. These felt safe and recognizable.

Then curiously she thought about what she was going to wear underneath these jeans as the thought of Chuck pulling them down over her hips slipped into her mind. Where were these thoughts coming from? The mystery of the last five years tickled at her psyche and tugged at her heart in unexplainable ways. She was confused by the question of what was now and what was then…and whether it even mattered. She sensed that no one else in the world might be experiencing what she was living at this moment, the duality of a newly rediscovered past and a present existence playing themselves out in the same instant in such a unique way.

She walked over to her dresser drawer and dug around for that special pair of panties she just knew would titillate and throw Chuck into a tailspin. What devilish thoughts. And her hands fell on something that didn't feel like garments in the bottom of the drawer. She pulled a bulging manila envelope from the bottom of the drawer and then looked at it curiously. She opened it and poured the contents out onto the bedspread, and then Sarah experienced an utterly euphoric flash tempered by the narcotic effect of the governor on her wrist. Lightheaded she looked at the objects on the bed, knowing what they meant to her even as she examined them. Several objects stood out from the rest. The charm bracelet, oh my, the jagged white, yet wonderful memories it elicited. She shook her head in confusion, and with it the pain, and then wrapped the bracelet around her wrist. There was a pendant that she had worn frequently after their marriage. And a picture hand drawn on top of a Japanese magazine advertisement? It was a picture of a couple with a baby in front of a white picket fence with a house from the advertisement in the background. Chuck had drawn it as she described the scene. The drawing was so endearing, it tugged on her heart and lit a fire in her she hardly recognized. And suddenly and inexplicably she felt like her body was moving two hundred miles per hour and the sensation caused her to almost fall over onto the bed.

Chuck walked into the room at that instant and looked at the picture lying on the bed, and as he caught Sarah in his arms he knew immediately what she was experiencing as he was caught up with her and was swept up in the vortex of the perception of a bullet train speeding down the tracks. Catching his wife in the dizzying slipstream they fell to the bed and they clung to each other as they felt the gentle rocking of the car on the tracks and the awareness of speed that pulled them into the moment.

Long minutes, very long minutes passed. A distance in time and space shared intimately until they finally came back to the here and now. And they realized as they held each other in a breathless embrace that somehow they had shed their clothes and made mad passionate love somewhere separate from the reality they normally lived in. Something huge had happened here. Something neither of them could or wanted to attempt to explain.

They laid there in the bed trying to grasp what had happened to them, and then Chuck thought to look at the clock on the headboard. "Oh my gosh, Sarah!" he exclaimed, "We were supposed to meet Casey and Gertrude at seven!"

"That's not for a couple of hours yet, sweetie, we have plenty of time," she said dreamily.

"It's 6:45, Sarah!"

"What?" She looked at the clock, and her eyes became as big as espresso cups, "What just happened, Chuck?"

"I don't know, Sarah!" Somehow they had lost over two hours of time, but it felt very far from lost or wasted.

Chuck sat up with a lurch in the bed and reached for his phone, and blurted out when it connected, "Casey I'm so sorry we're going to be a little late, we're still at home. We'll be out of here in a little bit."

"What now, Bartowski," he asked sarcastically, "did the earth move under you and Sarah again?"

"That's a pretty darn good description for it, buddy…we'll see you in a bit."

"*HNUMG*, Sorry I asked."

- VIII -

They sat on the sand watching a waxing crescent moon dip towards the horizon and reflect off the water in front of them. Sarah toyed with the charms on the bracelet wrapped around her right wrist and thought about the way the memories attached to it and time itself had seemingly become compressed after she and Chuck had looked at the picture he had drawn weeks ago in another universe. What an amazing experience those two hours had been, all those sensations and emotions condensed down to what felt like a few overpowering moments. She looked at Chuck and knew from the look on his face that they were sharing the same thought but something was holding her back from talking about it.

"Gertrude seems like a nice lady; she and Casey seem to be good for each other," she deflected.

Chuck held her gaze as a knowing smile crossed his face, "Yeah, I could see their relationship going to a level that could cause civilizations to fall."

Sarah let out a quick laugh, "They look like they are very happy together. Casey deserves that. He's given a lot of himself to serve his country over the years."

Chuck fixed his gaze on her eyes, "So have you."

Sarah looked at him a moment, then her lip quivered a bit, and she shifted on the sand to face him, "What happened to us this afternoon?"

He kissed her softly and held her left hand, "I don't know, but I hope it happens again sometime soon." His fingers caressed the spot where her wedding bands should be.

Sarah twisted her hand around so the face of her watch showed and she looked at it. "Do you think that this may have had anything to do with it? It's causing some pretty weird sensations. Sometimes it feels a little freaky."

"I've sensed it when I touch you. I can feel it now. It seems to have a powerful effect on me too…on my Intersect."

Sarah looked at the watch again and sighed, "I hope it's not addictive."

Chuck looked at her reassuringly, "I've never experienced anything like what I could call withdrawal when I was without the governor, but it was pretty uncomfortable without it." He looked at his own watch. He had started to use his old governor intermittently after uploading version 3.0, and he was wearing it now. And a thought occurred to him. "I don't want to freak you out more, Sarah, but I wonder if our governors and our Intersects might be interacting with each other in some way."

Sarah looked at him with a skeptical smile, "I think you've been watching too many science fiction movies, Chuck," but then she thought about it for a few seconds, "Maybe we should talk to Ellie and Manoosh about it."

Chuck could see some anxiousness starting to show in her eyes." I'll talk to Ellie about it in the morning, but lets not be troubled over it now, okay? We haven't experienced anything that I could say warrants being worried over." He smiled at her, "In fact, it felt like quite the opposite to me today."

She returned the smile as she looked into his eyes, "Yeah, that was pretty amazing wasn't it?"

"One of the coolest things that's _ever_ happened to me, to us_."_ Chuck thought about what he'd just said and once again felt his fingers on Sarah's left hand. He had brought Sarah here to do this, and now was as good a time as any. "Sarah, there was another moment in my life that was way more amazing for me, one that will always be at the top of the mountain for me."

"What moment was that, Chuck?"

He reached into his pocket and held out his closed hand. "It was the moment I placed these onto your finger." He opened his hand and the wedding bands sparkled in the moonlight.

Sarah's eyes filled to the brim as she looked at them and then to him, "Are those really mine? I thought they might have been lost forever."

"It's really them. I found them at Quinn's safehouse."

"Those are what Nikki said she was holding for you, aren't they?"

He nodded and smiled, "Mystery solved." He looked at her, the request showing in his eyes, "May I?"

She nodded back enthusiastically, "Yes!"

He placed the rings on her finger and they looked at them for a moment on her hand, and then before he even realized what was coming, Sarah had bowled him over, and they were wrapped up in each other lying in the sand lost in a kiss. Time compressed once again.

- IX -

So they wanted him to find information about Charles Bartowski and his wife Sarah Walker. He smirked at the computer screen. Digging through a bunch of dusty files or accessing a secure database wouldn't even be necessary for that to happen, he already had most of the information in his head. He thought about the trouble those two had been for his boss and him in the recent past; how an associate of the Bartowski's had smashed the plans that Clyde Decker's CIA black ops cell had tried to perpetrate on the CIA by framing Chuck Bartowski for cyber espionage. That friend of the Bartowki's had killed Decker and several of his teammates with an explosive device in a dark parking garage one night. He had barely survived the blast himself.

His hand ran over the burn scar on the right side of his face as he thought about the pleasure he was going to take in accepting this assignment. He crossed the room and opened an access panel in the side of his closet and pulled a large Zero-Halliburton case from its storage area. He opened it and scanned the case with his eyes to admire the contents. Two FN Herstal Five-SeveN tactical pistols with matching suppressors, a suppressed FN P90 submachine gun with an Eotech holographic sight, a Glock 26 with a suppressor and a laser site, a pair of night vision goggles, and several knives were all fitted into the foam inserts and with an assortment of loaded magazines and several tactical grenades. He had wondered if the day would ever come when he would get to use these tools of the trade. Now he nodded to himself as he closed the case and thought how much pleasure he was going to take in using them on these three adversaries, especially Gertrude Verbanski. His hand ran again over the scar on his face. He smiled as he thought about re-opening his own personal sanction on Gertrude Verbanski, and killing her.

Simon McKay grabbed his travel roller and a tactical duffle from his closet and started to pack as he thought about how he was going to conduct this lone op. He would share information with Edgar Sloan, but only enough, and only on a schedule that fit his own designs. He was going to help his Fulcrum associates, but he was also had an agenda of his own.

- X -

Nikki Lawson had stayed late again tonight. She had also hired four new employees today. One, of whose business card Chuck had given her that morning that was now sitting on her desk. She found it very amusing that Chuck wanted to hire this man who shared his cover name, people were probably going to think they were related. Another was the new receptionist, and she was particularly satisfied with that recruit. The new front office person was a marine officer formerly attached to the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Pendleton. She knew Lori Compton personally and was confident that she would make an excellent gatekeeper for the office. She was also looking forward to sparring with Lori again. The last two recruits were computer intel specialists that Digital Dave had mentioned to her. One was from the same office she used to work in at Fort Meade and the other was from Dave's group at Field Resources. She had poached Sally Williams from Dave and he wasn't too pleased with her about it even though he had offered her name to Nikki. Dave had given her a hard time when he'd heard about it and she knew that favors would have to be returned for wooing Sally away with such a huge salary offer. The upside to this was that Sally and all the rest of them were well known and would most likely prove to be trusted members of the team, and they would all be arriving during the day tomorrow.

As she made her rounds before closing up she walked through the recreation area and heard heavy breathing and physical commotion coming from the dojo. She peeked around a partition between the weight training area and the dojo and watched as Morgan Grimes performed a rather skillful wrist lock and tossed Alex McHugh to the mat with a push to her shoulder and a quick twisting step of his feet combined with a subtle settling of his stance. Alex rolled and sprang to her feet shaking her finger at him with a grin as he smiled back at her.

"If you keep that up I'm going to make you pay for it later, buster!" laughed Alex.

"What?" Morgan retorted as he held his hands up, "That is _not _a fair way to level the playing field."

"Level the playing field, eh? Oooo, you are _so _going to get it," she said as she started to shuffle her feet back and forth.

Morgan squared his stance to earth with his hands at his side, palms toward Alex, and then wiggled his fingers to his palms as he grinned, "Bring it, tough girl."

Nikki watched surprised as Alex flew in with a 540 crescent kick that if it had landed would have hurt a lot even with the padded sparring boots she was wearing. Morgan narrowly sidestepped and ducked it as Alex followed up with a sidekick the instant her kicking foot from the previous kick planted on the mat. He took half a step back, bent at the knees, and arched his back as his hand came up and he turned into the kick and parried the blow with his palm on her ankle just before her foot connected with his sternum. The parry spun Alex around so her back was to him and Morgan spun and stepped quickly in and grabbed her in a very un-martial arts like bear hug from behind. As he kissed her on the neck she reached up behind her with her foot and hooked his leg behind the knee and turned into him. They went tumbling to the mat in an awkward embrace as they laughed.

Seeing where this might be headed Nikki decided she needed to make her presence known so she stepped out from behind the partition and started to clap, "Bravo!" she exclaimed, "That was very fun to watch!"

Alex and Morgan looked up at her in surprise, but Morgan took advantage of the distraction and planted a quick kiss on Alex before he sat up grinning. Alex sat up behind him and gave him a playful shove on the back of the shoulder that caused his head to bounce around like a bobble head doll. "Hey Nikki," said the little bearded man with a grin, "We saw your car when we came in. Do you ever go home?"

"Ha, ha, very funny, Morgan. _Somebody _has to get some work done around here. Actually I was finally getting out of the office and I heard you in here while I was checking the place before I locked up. It's good to see the dojo getting some use, and you two are pretty darn good. It's fun to watch opposing styles like that."

Alex and Morgan exchanged a curious look about Nikki's observation, "Well obviously, not being very large, Aikido works very well for me," said Morgan. "Alex is very quick on her feet so Taekwondo is a natural choice for her, but you should see her Shotokan, she can pack quite a punch."

Nikki regarded the two of them with a smile…and lied, "I didn't know that you were practitioners, maybe I could join you sometime?" she asked, coyly.

"I'd like that," answered Alex as Morgan shot his girlfriend a look that might have been asking about her motivations. She smirked back at him.

"Caution might be the word of the day here, Alex," Morgan rebutted.

Alex took a couple of seconds to size Nikki up, she looked very fit and she had to get that way doing something. "I'm sure we can have some fun without hurting each other," she said.

Nikki showed Alex a challenging toothy grin, "Well, I won't interrupt your workout any longer. Call anytime Alex, I'm always up for the challenge, or just having someone to workout with if that suits you." She turned to leave and then turned back, "You know, it sounds like almost everyone here is into this sort of thing, maybe we should have an organized session a couple of nights a week for the entire team."

"That would be a lot of fun, Nikki, I like team building. Maybe we could have a team video game night too," replied Morgan as Alex rolled her eyes, "Lets mention it to Chuck, okay?"

Nikki smiled at the suggestion for a video game night, she loved working with nerds, "Okay, Morgan, lets do that." She turned to head for the door and waved over her shoulder, "Have a good evening, and try to keep it clean." Nikki Lawson walked to the elevator with a startling and newfound respect for Morgan Grimes.

They watched Nikki leave, and then Alex nudged her boyfriend on the shoulder again, "I wonder what _her_ specialty is?"

"Probably Ninjutsu," Morgan quickly answered, not realizing just how correct he was.

* * *

**A/N Spoiler Alert:** I sense that some readers might be starting to feel like a rather weak portrait of Sarah is being painted here up to this point in the story. Acknowledging that she is currently working through some major issues with her memory loss and even some of her recovered memories, and add to that some problems for her character that were created along the way by the original writers that need to be addressed, be prepared for some changes as we move forward from here and the Brown 25 starts to hit the rotary oscillator.

Mac


	8. Act 7

**A/N **5/15/12 – Sorry to keep you all waiting for this. Life has caught up with me and my schedule is slammed right now even considering the two week reprieve we've been granted because of late plantings due to rain in the Midwest this spring. This only means things will be extra crazy when it finally starts to get crazy…oh, joy. It's going to be a psychotic one.

Funny, just as my own life starts to roll into a simmering boil, so does this story. I'll try my damndest to keep you all from waiting for more.

**I don't own Chuck.**

P.S. This act was not beta read. Sorry you didn't get a preview **uplink2. **Chalk it up to the pressures of time, space, and mobile internet connections…

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 7**

She sat in a bathing suit and a wrap at her balcony table overlooking the Caribbean Sea and Isla Mujeres that was perched where the crystal blue waters met the horizon and the deep blue sky above it slowly filled with cumulus clouds. Her eyes scanned the beach below watching vacationers lounge and play on the white sand. It seemed like a nice place to run to, a vacation she had always wanted to take in an idyllic setting, surrounded by vacationing families, honeymooners, and lovers. And she felt totally isolated. Julie Peterson stared at the people on the beach below and wondered how she had ever allowed herself to be used like this. How she had been seduced to think the allure, the money, or the excitement of joining a shadowy organization could ever have been worth this, a life on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder, paranoid, and wondering if she was going walk around a street corner straight into a bullet.

Julie hadn't even thought of the possibility that this could have happened to her. She was an analyst, not a field agent. She had no back up ID's or passports, or even a plan. But she knew she had to do something. Eventually the people she had aligned herself with and finally betrayed would come looking for her and make her pay for her betrayal. She looked at her new laptop computer screen and sighed as she reviewed the search results for the company she was researching on her web browser, and then she tabbed though the company web pages, scanning the information on them as she went. Eventually she clicked the tab once again for the company contact page. She may not have been a field agent but she knew how to use the skills she had very well. She was a gifted analyst and knew her way around a computer network. She browsed to the new email box on her recently opened web portal account and typed in the email address from the web page. She reviewed what she had typed and let out a deep breath as the curser hovered over the send button…then she clicked it.

As Julie sat there staring out over the waters of the bay thinking about what she had just done it finally occurred to her that she had just offered to become a double agent.

- II -

Colonel John Casey walked out of the elevator and through the glass doors into the reception area.

"Good morning, Colonel Casey"

He nodded to the new receptionist, Lori Compton, "Morning, Lori. Anything earth shattering happen around here over the weekend?"

"No, nothing that made it into the newspapers at least. We still have software contractors coming in and out, that's going to be happening for a few more days."

"*Hng*, nerds, can't seem to live without them these days, can't kill em'. Any red flags?"

"No, Nikki and I finished the morning bug sweep a few minutes ago, it was negative."

"Well, I'm not going to feel like I can relax even a bit around here until those pencil necks are out of the building."

Lori grinned at him, "Well, just wait until you meet a couple of the new team members."

He returned a glare masking amusement, "Damn, Lori, I don't need to hear this sort of trash talk when I walk through the door on Monday morning, I'll be in my office."

"You know where to find me if you need anything," retorted the Marine Captain.

Casey shook his head as he walked down the hallway to his new office not far from the reception area. Pencil neck nerd employees aside, it seemed like every day since he had first walked in here last Thursday afternoon a new stunningly beautiful woman was working in the office. He was starting to feel like he was a character in a Bond film.

He walked into his new office and poured a freshly brewed cup of coffee from the beverage station in the corner, and smirked after he was sure no one was around to see him do it. Yeah, he could get used to working here. He logged into the secure network and started reviewing several personnel files spread across the three monitors in front of him.

The first one was of the woman who greeted him as he walked into the offices. He and Lori Compton were from the same Marine Recon unit at Camp Pendleton, different times of course, but Force Recon's history was a colorful one and Lori's personal record was no less colorful from the looks of her file. She had served two tours in the 1st Reconnaissance Battalions public affairs office and the billet had lead her to both Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years. She'd ended up picking up a rifle and fighting with her unit when it was briefly overrun in the battle for Fallujah while attached to Tactical PSYOP Team 1171 in late 2004. She had provided rear cover and spotted for a scout sniper team when the teams regular spotter had been wounded, and reportedly she comported herself very well as the team decimated a large force of insurgents from a rather unprotected rooftop position right in the middle of the fighting. She was awarded the Bronze Star for that action.

Then in Afghanistan she was the point person with the media when several members of the 'Black Diamonds' Charlie Company were seen in a photograph with a flag that bore a slight resemblance to the Nazi Waffen SS logo, but was in fact a flag of the Marine Corps famous scout sniper. She had helped to diffuse the potentially ugly PR situation with a very notable and tactful dressing down of a famous U.S. press corps member during a televised briefing in very typical Marine Corps fashion. Casey really liked what he was seeing in this personnel file, but most of the photos in her file did not do justice to the drop dead gorgeous woman who was now Carmichael Industries' gatekeeper.

Then he looked at Nikki Lawson's file. There was very little in it. She was a Lt. Commander in the Navy and she had her Naval Aviator's wings, that much was revealed, but it was the only military background showing in her file. The rest was either redacted or missing entirely. There were only a couple of photos; one in her dress whites and one wearing her flight suit, both of them were the customary boilerplate military portraits from the waist up. But the one of her in her flight suit had the VFA-105 squadron insignia printed in the corner of the photo - The Gunslingers - it figured. The one thing that struck Casey was the young woman in the photos wearing the Lt. Commander insignia on her uniform was even younger looking than the woman he was just getting to know, and he would have now mistaken her for Sarah's twin or slightly younger sister...literally. He suspected that Nikki Lawson was older than she looked.

Her file showed a posting at Fort Meade as an analyst for the last six years, as Chuck and Dave O'Conner had stated, but Casey wondered how much of that was real or a smoke screen given the lack of other information in the file. Nikki's file was more of a mystery than his own and that was saying quite a lot. Casey was starting to suspect her NSA background was also very similar to his own when he tried to read between the redacted lines.

He cracked his knuckles as he looked at the dossier and growled. A more direct approach was going to be required with Nikki.

- III -

Chuck reached to pull the front door closed behind him and they turned to walk across the courtyard only to look up to the top of the stairway landing of what used to be Mr. and Mrs. Addisian's apartment as he heard the front door opening. And to Chuck's surprise, he wasn't at all surprised to see NSA agent John Rogers coming out of the front door. "I was wondering who they were going to have move into that place, John."

Agent Roger's smiled back at Chuck and Sarah, " I guess you don't have to wonder any longer, neighbor," John Roger's said as he started to stride down the stairs two steps at a time. "I thought it was about time I let you know who your security detail was. We knew you had to have been wondering. I'd like to introduce you to my partner."

Sarah looked between Chuck and agent Rogers, with confusion, "Chuck, do you know this gentleman?"

Chuck's eye's met Sarah's with a startled look that he swiftly shared with John Roger's, and it then dawned on him that Sarah's memory of John had been suppressed at Quinn's base the week before when he and Sarah had been exposed to the flashcards recovered from Quinn's booby trapped safe. She had no reachable memory of him.

"Sarah, this is John Rogers. He's the agent you steamrolled at Quinn's safehouse last week."

"Steamrolled?" Sarah asked incredulously, "That sounds a little harsh, you'd think I would remember something like that."

Roger's chuckled at Chuck's choice of words as he looked at Sarah with amusement, "Yeah, that pretty much describes it. There was no damn way I was going to try to stop you that day. I really didn't want to get my ass kicked in front of a bunch of my coworkers."

Sarah looked at both of the men in front of her like they had each grown a second head.

Chuck decided it was time for an explanation for both Sarah _and _John_. _"Sarah, when you were exposed to the flashcards at Quinn's base you lost almost an hour of your memory. John was the agent who escorted you onto the scene just before it happened." He then looked at agent Roger's wondering how much he had said that John wasn't cleared to hear.

Roger's read his mind, "Relax, Chuck, I wouldn't be on this detail if I didn't know most of the nitty-gritty details." He looked at Sarah and chuckled again, "Sarah, you were on a mission that day, only a fool would have tried to get in your way."

Sarah looked at both of them for a moment and they could see that she was quickly placing the pieces of the puzzle together. "So, sweetie, was Agent Roger's with you when you Fast Roped from a helicopter into a situation that could have gotten all of you blown to bits?"

Chuck and John shared a look that Sarah could only define as 'guilty as charged'.

"You're on my shit list until further notice, Agent Rogers," she stated flatly, and she turned to walk out of the courtyard.

Chuck rolled his eyes at Rogers, "We'll drop by later today to meet your partner. Don't worry, you won't stay on that list forever, as long as you have the right answers she's inevitably going to ask you about the depth of your camera surveillance."

He watched Rogers palm his face as he quickly walked away to catch his wife, "Hey-oh, Sarah, hey, slow down baby, don't leave without me."

Sarah turned around standing on the walkway near the street and faced him with her arms crossed across her chest and an exasperated look on her face, "Chuck I think it's time we talk some more about finally buying that house of ours. I'm getting a little sick of being constantly reminded how complicated our lives have become since I made that stupid decision to put on a pair of fancy sunglasses eight weeks ago."

He walked up to her and placed his hands on her shoulders and let them glide down her arms feeling the tension in them as his hands took a hold of hers and unfolded her arms. He looked into her misty eyes, "Sarah, it's time to stop second-guessing yourself, you did what you thought was the right thing to do at the time. We'll get through this. Besides, Agent Walker, you know that if we move into our house with the red door and the white picket fence right now we'll only have Agent Roger's and his partner moving in next door a day later."

Sarah, tensed at the mention of her maiden name again, blinked back tears, and blurted, "Chuck my name is Sarah Bartowski," and then she added with frustration, "or Carmichael, depending where we are and who we're talking too…oh, God…I'm beginning to really hate the spy life."

Chuck returned a startled and apologetic look to her sudden outburst, "I'm sorry, Sarah, I didn't mean to get you upset. When I call you Agent Walker I guess I'm just trying to get the attention of the Sarah who is the spy, and who thinks like a spy, and sometimes I'm still a little confused what to call you because only a month ago you only seemed interested in returning to your former life and not being Sarah Bartowski again. I'm trying not to push you."

She dropped his hands and turned away as she brought her hand to her face, "Chuck, I'm trying to get reacquainted with Sarah Bartowski again, the Sarah who is your wife, calling me Sarah Walker is definitely not helping at the moment." She turned back to him with a pleading look, "I feel like I have a split personality right now, so please try to avoid using my maiden name for the time being, it only makes it worse and it sends me back to a time that I'm quickly realizing I don't want much to do with anymore. Dammit, Chuck, I want to be Sarah Bartowski again!"

Stepping quickly to her Chuck took Sarah up in a comforting embrace as her hands came up behind his shoulders and she buried her face in his chest. "You're always so full of surprises, Sarah Bartowski. Every day is indeed a new day when I'm with you."

A couple hundred yards away Simon McKay sat in his car watching through a monocular as Chuck and Sarah Bartowski talked to each other on the sidewalk. He watched with interest wishing he had brought his parabolic microphone with him because the two of them seemed to be talking about something very important as they stood at the curb and then held each other for several minutes as they kept talking. Then he watched them kiss each other rather ardently and eventually separate to get into the dark gray Lotus parked at the curb. He smirked to himself as he watched them drive away before starting his car to keep an appointment with Edgar Sloan.

- IV -

"Do you have a minute Agent Casey?"

John Casey looked up from background investigation documents of several prospective employees on the monitors in front of him to see Nikki Lawson standing in the doorway of his office. This was as good a time as any to get a few questions answered, "Sure, what's on your mind, Lawson?"

She handed him a single page document, "This came into the general company email box this morning."

Casey's eye's narrowed as he read it. "Have Chuck and Sarah shown up yet?"

"No, but I'm expecting them any time now. How do you think we should proceed with this?"

"How do _you _think we should proceed with this, _Agent_ Lawson, or should I call you Lt. Commander Lawson?"

Nikki cocked her head to one side and smiled wryly at him, "Been doing some digging?"

"I still have one or two friends at Fort Meade." He allowed a hint of a smile to cross his face. "However, the NSA agent being referred to in this is probably you." He shook the email.

"Me? Why would it be me? You're the NSA agent with the most history with Chuck and Sarah."

"But I've been off grid for over a month and I'm already fairly well known; you, on the other hand, it seems, are deep cover. This inquiry is referring to someone from the NSA that Chuck has recently associated with before I came back, someone without any apparent history. I think you've been made by someone, Lawson." He paused for her to consider his words. "Now that we at least have that on the table, how would you handle this?" He waved the email again in the air for effect.

Nikki took a couple seconds to respond as she pondered how her file could have gotten into the wrong hands, then she addressed his question when it occurred to her that if Casey could get a hold of her file, then maybe someone else could too. "Well, I think a good start would be to answer it, see if we can open a dialogue, get more info, find out who this person is and where they work. Then we should try to pull whoever this person is back in. Whoever they are, they probably have a target painted on their back." She pondered it for a moment wondering just how exposed they already were, "Do you think we should call Chuck and Sarah now and warn them?"

"No we'll talk about it when they get here, but we need to set up counter surveillance immediately. If this is legit we're all probably being watched."

"I'll get started on it right away. Do you think we should tell Beckman about this?"

Casey's eyes locked hard on Nikki's at the mention of Beckman's name, "We will, but not yet. I'm concerned about how these guys found out about you and how close they may be to the top of the command chain."

"Okay, we'll keep it 'in house' for the time being." She turned to leave.

"Agent Lawson."

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Just whom do you work for?"

Nikki's eyes narrowed subtly as she slowly turned back around to face Casey, "I work for Chuck. The primary focus of my job will always be him."

"Hng. Did Beckman really hire you?"

"No, if Chuck didn't want me here, another well qualified candidate would have been recommended to him," she deflected.

"You're almost as good at non-answers as Walker. Spill it, Lawson, I want to know your whole mission here."

She shifted her weight back and forth on her feet a couple of times while giving Casey a very penetrating look as if trying to assess his motives for asking the question. She saw genuine concern for Chuck written in his eyes. "I was hired to do all the things you see me do around here, but Colonel, when it looked like Sarah might not return General Beckman requested me specifically. One of my tasks here is to protect Chuck at all costs, and I take that job very seriously."

Casey responded with grunt #7 – severe skepticism, "You mean protect the Intersect."

"No, Colonel Casey, I mean protect _Chuck. _I don't give a flying flip about the Intersect. That might be Beckman's motivation but I can assure you it's not mine. The Intersect has been restored and it's replaceable, _Chuck isn't._ Besides, if Chuck is safe, then the Intersect is safe." She'd said it with steel in her voice and Casey took note with a little admiration that she sounded a bit like him when she said it.

"Roger that." He regarded her with his usual expressionless expression, but his eyes were showing her that Casey smile that was hard to miss if you knew where to look for it. It surprised him a lot that Nikki Lawson saw something after only a couple of weeks with Chuck that it had taken him almost a couple of years to see. Then he threw her a curve ball, "You sure do look a lot like Sarah."

She crossed her arms in front of her and stared at him, "Yes, I've noticed that too. I'm sure it had more than a little bit to do with why I was recommended to Chuck. Don't think for a second that I would ever try to use that as an advantage over him. Frankly, it pisses me off a bit."

"Fair enough, I won't judge you over the motives of others. I hope you understand why I had to ask you these questions; I tend to be a little over-protective when in comes to Bartowski. At first it was my job, but over the years…" He glared at her, "don't you _ever_ let him know I said that."

"I understand, John, I would have done the same thing if I was sitting where you are, and I'll keep your secret…even though he already knows it." She watched Casey's reaction with amusement. "Chuck has a way of pulling everyone into his circle very rapidly doesn't he?"

"Yes. Yes, he does. How deep are your lady feelings for Chuck, Lawson?"

She returned an irritated smirk. "Lady feelings, huh?" And then Nikki softened a bit as she regarded the deeper meaning of the question and decided to address it, "Oh, what the hell, let me tell you something, I'm just barely getting to know Chuck. But I can see how some people with questionable motivations may have set us up. I like him, and we share a lot in common. We would probably be a good match for each other given a different set of circumstances. Don't get me wrong, Casey, I'm very happy that Sarah made the decision to come back home to Chuck; it would have taken him a long time to get over her. It is obvious his love for her goes very, very, deep."

"Good God, spare me the gory details, sorry I asked," Casey retorted, "The simple truth is, I doubt that I would have come back here if Sarah didn't. I wouldn't have been able to withstand all those years of watching Bartowski mope around here like someone had thrown his kittens off a bridge."

"I think Chuck is a little more resilient than that, Casey, but yes, it would have been a little difficult for a while." Nikki shifted a bit again on her feet as she considered just how much she had disclosed, "I hope I've dispelled any concerns you may have had."

"Yeah, Nikki, you have. And thanks for being here for Bartowski even when it looked like other people were pulling strings. I think Chuck made the right decision when he brought you on the team."

"Thank you, I take that as a huge compliment coming from you. Now if you don't mind I have a large backlog of work to get to."

Casey waved her off with smirk and she turned to leave again.

"Oh, and Agent Lawson?"

"Yes?"

"I hope you're not so busy you can't find some time to show me that fancy handgun of yours later."

"Handguns, plural…I always carry at least two. And I always make some time in my day for some range work, it's part of the job."

Casey lost control of himself and broke into a huge grin, but after Nikki left his office he picked up his cell phone and called Walker on a secure connection.

- V -

The three of them sat impatiently around Chuck's desk as he quickly reviewed the software work being conducted on the server farm. "I'm not seeing anything to be concerned about here," he stated as he reviewed a dedicated scan of the communications records and application logs. "All of the SoftTech people were cleared by Beckman's office, I'm going to review this some more but so far I'm confident that her people have held up their side of the job and that we're secure."

He lamented the fact that he had not had the time to dedicate himself to this important aspect of his business the last several days. Until he looked at his wife and was instantly reminded of what was most important to him in his life. Work on the Iv4 coding had been consuming him and he was thinking of little else these last few days. Then Sarah's eyes met his as he looked across the top of the monitor in front of him and they shared their thoughts in a 'flash'. This connection they were sharing was startling, and frightening, and exhilarating. He had promised Sarah he would talk to Ellie about it, but the more he thought about what was happening between Sarah and him the more he wanted to keep it between the two of them.

They shared a very brief smile and he dove again into the code for a few minutes. "This email originated in Cancun, but it was very cleverly routed through several servers. It's impressive considering it was sent from a webmail portal."

"*Hnmgn*, English please, Bartowski," Casey stated impatiently, "Who are we dealing with here?"

Chuck gave his friend a very contained smile, "This was sent by a pro. She's very good at her job, probably an analyst."

"She?" Nikki looked at Chuck skeptically, "You know the sex of the sender by looking at the way it was sent?"

Chuck grinned back at her, "Well, it's not as simple as that, but there were several clues in the body of the message that hinted at the gender of the sender and, yes, the way it was sent did sort of confirm that."

"Whatever, boss, I guess I'll just have to take your word for it."

"Trust me, Nikki, at some point, probably sooner than you think, you'll start to trust Chuck's instincts about this sort of thing implicitly," Sarah interjected.

"Oh, believe me, I'm learning Sarah, and I've seen all the mission logs too. I know what this team has accomplished over the years."

Chuck looked back and forth between the two women with interest and then decided he better step in, "C'mon, Nikki, just look at the email addy. CoolJules82? That's a fairly strong clue if you ask me, and there are other clues in the body of the letter."

"A red herring if you ask me."

"I don't think so, but I'll concede the point. Personally, I think she wanted us to know. This woman is scared, and she's asking for our help."

"Okay, considering all of this is true," Nikki asked skeptically, "what do you recommend we do, Chuck?"

"What you originally suggested we do this morning, Lawson," Casey interjected, "We bring her in."

Chuck thought about it for a minute, "Let's be bold and audacious, we'll send her an E-ticket ride to L.A. and see what happens. We should also do a discreet search to see if any Agency or NSA employees are AWOL."

"Okay, boss, I'll see to that. First Class I presume?"

"Sure, why not? Might as well try to make her feel comfortable, right?"

- VI -

Casey and Nikki had left Chucks office. Sarah stayed and watched her husband attentively as his fingers tapped away at the keyboard and he scanned the three monitors in front of him. As she looked at him absorbed in his work on the computer she realized just how right she had been to suggest the change in direction for their company. She knew and acknowledged where her roots were in the CIA, but watching Chuck work in his element with a computer told her a story she didn't understand on the surface, but deep down she knew it was where both of them belonged. She walked around the desk and wrapped her arms around him as he worked an alchemy she didn't completely comprehend but shared an unsettling link with, and a hidden knowledge of, because of the Intersect within her. Chuck reached around behind him and pulled her closer to him as he turned to her and let his lips wander down Sarah's neck settling where it met her shoulder. She shuddered as she realized the physical contact was pulling her to a place both of them were still trying to come to grips with, and Chuck reached for her and kissed her fervently. He then let her go gradually as he too realized they needed to try to stay in the here and now.

"Mmmm, Sweetie, if I don't find something else to do I may have to just take you here on your desk," she said seductively.

Chuck held her arm that was wrapped around him absorbed in the sensation of contact with her, "As enticing as that sounds, I don't think that either of us can afford any lost time today. We'll have to break-in this desk on another day," he said with a hint of regret that his smile seemed to contradict.

Sarah smiled back at him and bent over to give him another quick kiss, "I'll be in my fancy new office if you need me." As she stepped back from him their hands lingered in their grasp of each other finally broken along with the odd sensation they had been experiencing when they touched. At last their eyes also broke contact and she walked through the doorway connecting their offices.

Sarah walked to her desk and sat down behind it in her executive chair for the first time. She swiveled it around in an arc as she looked at the room but didn't really see it. At first she saw a blended image of the room and Chuck standing out in front of Casa Bartowski on the walkway, and the look on Chuck's face when she had told him she wanted to be Sarah Bartowski again. Then the image crystallized into something else as her mind left the office completely. After a long moment somewhere else the room slowly came back into focus. She turned to her computer and opened her web browser and searched for the name of a realty company. As she browsed to the company page she started to hum an old familiar tune that strangely she couldn't seem to place.

In the adjoining office Chuck's head came up from his work with a start as he heard Sarah humming through the open door between them, and his face broke into a broad smile as he closed his eyes and the gentle and soulful voice of Nina Simone filled his head.

- VII -

Edgar Sloan looked at the hard unyielding eyes of the man across from him. He had originally been reluctant to activate Simon McKay. He considered him to be a lose cannon and a risk because of his upper level position at the CIA, but looking at the man across from him made him wonder if his original decision to take a subtler route with an analyst was the wrong thing to do. Now it looked like they had lost their other agent at Langley, most likely scared off by the nature of the orders they had given her. Unfortunately they were going to have to find Julie Peterson now and terminate her contract, the hard way. It was a waste of good talent, but they couldn't take the chance that she would talk to the wrong people about her associates no matter how little she actually knew.

"So, Simon, I expected to hear from you a couple of days ago, why the delay?"

McKay cocked his head to the side and smiled tightly, "I needed a couple of days to gather information and confirm some intel." He pulled a small manila envelope from the inside of his jacket and placed it on the edge of the desk. "I think you'll find this helpful."

Sloan leaned over and picked up the envelope and spilled the contents onto his desk. There were some pictures, a couple of folded documents and a thumb drive. He inserted the thumb drive into a USB port on his monitor stand and opened the file. "Interesting."

"Isn't it," McKay said laconically, "Our Intersect tech is being held at the JPL annex and also likely at a secret facility that Carmichael owns beneath that Buy More store." He wasn't going to tell Sloan he already knew where it was in Castle or what was going on there. He had no intention of giving Edgar information at this time that might affect his own timetable.

"Why would they hide the tech at a private facility?" asked Sloan, "I thought Carmichael was just a cyber-security guy."

"Carmichael's association with the CIA and the NSA goes back several years. You know he used to be with the Company, don't you?"

"Yes, we knew that, but records show those ties were severed almost a year ago under rather ugly circumstances that no one seems to know any details about."

Simon McKay allowed a smirk to cross his face. Oh, he knew all the details. "It looks like Carmichael is back with the Agency now, and his facility is being shared with the NSA and the CIA. If you want the Intersect technology back we're going to have to get inside that facility."

"What else do you know about Carmichael? Just how far up do his connections go?"

"Way up. He answers to the CIA's Director of Science and Technology and to the CIA and NSA Directors."

"Do we have any additional information on his wife?"

"Not much," McKay lied, "But I can tell you one very important thing, she and John Casey's protective detail for the last five years had to do with the Intersect project."

Sloan's eyes narrowed to almost slits as he looked at McKay, "How close were they to the project, Simon?"

"Very close." He wasn't going to tell Sloan that he knew that Chuck was once the human Intersect, at least not yet. And he wasn't going to tell Sloan that he suspected Sarah Walker had recently downloaded the Ring Intersect as well, not yet. "As you probably noticed I've also supplied you with the location of the Carmichael's residence."

"I see that. They live in an apartment complex?"

"Everyone living in that complex is working for the government in one capacity or another."

"Interesting."

"Indeed. Would you like to hear my recommendations for a plan to get what you want, and maybe more than you originally had in mind?"

"I'm listening, let's hear it."

- VIII -

Casey examined the disassembled handgun on the bench in front of him. He picked up the frame and noted its lightness as he looked closely at it.

"It's an aluminum frame with a polymer grip. The thin polymer grip is what allows it to accept a double column magazine and still have that nice slim slab sided 1911 profile," Nikki explained.

He quickly reassembled it and raised it to look down the sight plane, "Gotta love the simplicity of the 1911," he said as he looked at Nikki out of the corner of his eye with an approving almost non-existent Casey grin. "Seems a little light on the bottom end without a magazine."

Nikki picked up a loaded magazine and he took it and slapped it into the grip and brought it up to a modified Weaver grip again, "Oh yeah, that's better. Ten rounds?"

"Eleven, plus one. The .40 holds fourteen plus one."

"Really? I like it. I like the way you can take this compensator off and attach the suppressor, that's pretty slick. Do you mind if I show this to my girlfriend sometime?"

Nikki broke into a very broad, and very bright, toothy smile.

"*Hng*, What?" Casey asked defensively.

She giggled at him, "Well, even really knowing you mostly only by reputation, I never thought I'd ever hear the words 'girlfriend' come out of your mouth."

"Hng, Oh? Ha, I guess there may be hope for me yet. Let me tell you something young lady if it wasn't for the fact that I'm in lo- …that I care about Gertrude Verbanski a whole lot…and that you are probably half my age…well…" To his surprise Nikki blushed.

"I doubt very much I'm half your age, Colonel Casey, but thank you for the compliment, I'm merely very well preserved."

"Maybe you could share your secrets for timeless aging with me sometime then."

"Meet me in the dojo anytime…bring Gertrude along with you if it'll make you feel more comfortable," she added when she saw the look on his face.

"We might have to do that," he answered out of curiosity. He looked again at the pistol in his hand. "You said you always carry two of these, where do you hide the second one?" The way he posed the question made him finally realize how flirtatious the whole conversation had been. It shocked him the way he had let his guard down, then he considered where they were.

She reached under her jacket to the small of her back and pulled a STI 2011 .45 caliber Total Eclipse from the gunleather inside her waistband, then dropped the magazine and racked the round out of the chamber catching it in the air before she handed him the gun with the slide locked back. "This is the third one if I'm wearing my double shoulder rig," she added casually.

Casey watched her as she did it and out of the blue felt like he was being seduced. He looked at Nikki approvingly then examined the pistol, and exclaimed, "Wow, this is tiny, same maker I see, and .45 caliber too. I guess you like big bores?" _Damn._

Nikki nodded and stifled a grin, "I like big heavy bullets. They work well with suppressors too."

"Will you let me shoot it?"

"Sure, why not? That's what it was made for."

They walked into the range. And an hour later John Casey walked back out with a very out of character and very large grin plastered on his face. He was in love, and he didn't know how his ever-faithful Sig Sauer was going to take the news.

- IX -

Allen Preston was beginning to wonder why the hell they were here. They had been sitting here in this office for almost five days and all they had to show for it was the make and model of all the cars the employees drove. They had a man inside with the software crew but so far he hadn't planted any bugs and only provided limited intel about accessing the building if they needed to make a full scale breach of it without being completely compromised. He sat in the back of the office space looking at the displays as his men watched the area around their post.

None of them saw the tiny high-powered video camera hidden in the rooftop heliport's landing zone marker lights, and it was looking right at them. Lori Compton panned the camera across the windows of the office building across the street and returned to the window that had caught her interest. Yes, that was definitely a surveillance team. She could see the cameras on tripods well back from the windows, but not far enough, and three very bored looking men at the very back of the room with headphones on their heads that appeared to be watching screens of some sort that cast a glow on their faces.

Lori thumbed the intercom switch on her phone, "Nikki, I think you should see this, I'm patching the feed through to you now, I'll be back to your office in a minute."

Lori walked into her boss's office just in time to hear her exclaim, "Damn." Nikki keyed her intercom, "Casey, you might want to come in here."

A minute later the three of them were looking at the camera feed. "Well that confirms it, our source wasn't bogus," proclaimed Casey, "That is definitely a surveillance team. We better let Chuck and Sarah know about this."

A minute later they were all gathered in Chuck's office as Chuck looked at the video feed with Sarah looking over his shoulder. "Great, so now we have nosy neighbors," Chuck quipped, "it appears our whistle blower was legit. Do we have any idea who these characters are?" He asked, as his eyes fell on everyone in the room.

Nikki spoke up first, "Well, the email said they were Fulcrum, and that dovetails with what we know based on the raid on Quinn's hideout."

Chuck looked from Nikki back to the video and the camera panned to one of the men sitting at the back of the room, and he flashed. He started to say something when he felt his chair shake and he jerked his head up to look at Sarah just in time to watch her eyes return to normal and a look of discomfort cross her face.

"Walker, did you just flash?" blurted Casey.

Sarah looked from Chuck to Casey and her expression turned to one of irritation. "It's Bartowski, Casey." And she noted the look of confusion on Casey's face and shook her head, "Never mind."

"Well thanks for a little leeway, it could get a little confusing calling both of you Bartowski."

"You could always try using our given names," she retorted

Chuck rolled his eyes, "Yeah, like that's ever going to happen in our lifetimes."

"*HMNg*" Alarm was very subtly showing on Casey's face as he glared at Sarah, "Answer my question."

"Yes, _John_, that was a flash…at least I think it was," answered Sarah as she looked at the startled faces around her.

Chuck fixed a concerned gaze on his wife as he turned to her, "How are you feeling, Sarah? Is that the first time you've flashed since you started wearing the governor? Are you okay? Any pain?"

She looked back at him reassuringly, "Yeah, I think I'm fine, and yes that was the first time. What a strange experience." She let her eyes travel again to all the surprised faces in the room and then smiled sheepishly.

"Okay, what did you flash on?" asked Chuck.

"Back up the video," she said, pointing to the monitor. Chuck complied and he stopped at the point where Allen Preston's face showed. They exchanged a knowing look between them. "That's Allen Preston, he's Fulcrum, and he used to be one of Ted Rourk's close associates. He was one of Rourk's top security people," said Sarah with a look of new discovery.

"That's what I saw too, but I'll fill in a blank for you." Chuck looked at her with some concern for a second, and then decided to take the risk and continue, "Allen Preston was at Black Rock in Barstow when Rourk's bunker there was bombed, but his body was never recovered. He disappeared after the incident at Ellie's wedding."

"Something happened at Ellie's wedding?"

"Waitwaitwaitwait, don't Sarah, don't try to remember it!" Chuck reached around to grab her hand and pull her attention to him, "I'm sorry I said way too much...Gah, I really need to learn to shut my big mouth."

"Hmhg, Roger that, moron."

Sarah glared back at Casey, "John…"

Casey shrugged, "Just trying to do my part to help keep you focused, _Sarah," _he answered with a faint smirk. Everyone exchanged looks ranging from curiosity to relief as no one said anything for several seconds. Lori Compton had a look on her face that clearly showed she was way out of the loop about what was being discussed.

"Okay, so now we know we're being watched," said Chuck as he looked around the room at his associates, "does anyone have an idea what we should do about it?"

"I think I may have an idea."

Everyone's eyes fell onto Lori and she broke into a devilish grin.

- X -

Sarah looked over at the new watch on her left wrist as she was finishing up her notes in her Intersect log at the break room table in Castle. This one was a Rolex Oyster Ladies President with thirty diamonds set around the bezel and ten diamonds where the numerals would normally be on the blue dial face. It was her fourth governor now, and what Manoosh was calling attenuation set version 2 for her brain physiology. Chuck had picked out the watch for her and presented it to her as a gift when they had gone to dinner last night. It was gorgeous, and she was having a difficult time keeping her eyes off of it. But the appearance of it alone wasn't what kept her looking back at it every few minutes, it was also the sensations it was producing in her mind and body. This upgraded governor was causing some interesting things to happen with her Intersect and she was trying to put the experiences to words for her log but having a difficult time describing some of them.

This morning during her workout in the dojo she had found herself skill-set flashing while performing Shorin-Ryu katas. The flash came upon her fluidly, unexpectedly, and without pain as she was halfway through a kata she hadn't practiced in what her memory was telling her was years, but suddenly performed almost flawlessly as the muscle memory from the Intersect programming overtook her and she finished it and moved to the next kata seamlessly and with little effort. It was a strange blending of something she already knew how to do and a skill that was also programmed into her, and it shocked her a bit as she thought about it after she was done and had sat down on the mat to stretch out her hamstrings at the end of her workout.

The precision of her movement and the speed wasn't the only thing that surprised her when she was thinking about it as she brought her forehead down to her knee. As she came back up her eyes fell on the striking dummy she had been pummeling toward the end of her workout and she noticed the tear in the plastisol cover of 'Bob' at the base of his neck. Poor Bob, she had almost knocked his head off with a particularly vicious kick to his temple. Sarah looked at the damage and realized she was going to have to use extreme caution when sparring with live opponents from now on because the Intersect was also having an effect on her already surprising and prodigious strength for someone her size. As she was showering off the sweat from her workout she paused to look at the Casio sport watch/governor that Manoosh had given her that morning before she had headed into the gym, and thought about just how much she did not want to take it off even in the shower because of the discomfort it created when she didn't have one on.

Sarah shook her head disturbed by the revelation that she was apparently dependant on the technology around her wrist. She got up from the break room table and walked down the hall into the conference area where she found Ellie sitting at the table looking very absorbed in something on her laptop computer. Sarah sat at the table across from her and quietly watched Ellie at work for several minutes.

Ellie looked over the top of her laptop screen and finally snapped out of it as she saw Sarah sitting there with a look on her face that immediately got her attention. "Sarah! I'm sorry, how long have you been sitting there? I guess I was 'in the zone', wasn't I?"

"Yeah, you definitely were. I've been here for a little while." She allowed a thin smile to show on her face, "I swear, I could hear your brain working from across the table. It's fascinating to watch you Bartowki's when your minds are at work."

Ellie let a short chuckle pass her lips that quickly cut off as she read Sarah's face. "Sarah, what's wrong? You look like something is really bothering you. Are you having troubles with the version 2 governor? If you are, we need to know about it right away."

"I don't know if I would call it a problem, Ellie, but I do have some concerns about this," she said as she held up the Rolex and the light caught the diamonds on the bezel and the dial.

Ellie's eyes grew wide as she looked at the watch, "Oh, my goodness, that is beautiful!"

"Thank you, Chuck picked it out for me and gave it to me last night."

"Wow, just wow." Ellie said beaming, "I need to have my little brother have a talk with Devon. You're not concerned that it's a little too ostentatious, are you?"

"Oh, no. It's gorgeous. I love it. In fact it sort of helps make the purpose of it a little easier to live with," Sarah said a little wistfully.

The light bulb lit up over Ellie's head as she finally recognized where she thought the look of concern was coming from. "Sarah, I know how fiercely independent you can be, it's really bothering you that you have to wear a governor, isn't it?"

"Yes. Yes, it is. I'm just getting used to the idea of letting myself unconditionally trust and depend on Chuck and all of you again. That has been a lot to try to accept by itself. This," she said holding up the governor, "is starting to feel like a dependency I have no control over, though. It really does bother me."

"Have you talked to Chuck or Dr. Dreyfus about it?"

"Yes, we've discussed it a bit. I know Chuck's been living with a governor for quite a while now, but he doesn't experience anywhere near the level of discomfort I do when he takes his off."

"When we get that damn Ring Intersect out of your head that will all change, you know, and we're very close to having Iv4 ready for a download." Ellie said encouragingly.

Sarah's mouth set into a tight line, "I'm not sure whether I'm excited to hear that or not, Ellie, this whole Intersect experience has been a very scary one for me, and I'm not a person who scares easily. Honestly, I don't know how Chuck does it, how he could make the decision to download the version 2 and 3 so easily. At times the Intersect can be so overwhelming."

"Maybe you should ask him about it Sarah, I don't think the choice was as easy for him to make as you might think. If I know one thing about my brother, it's that he doesn't make decisions like this lightly, and the conclusion to download version 3 was very hard for him considering how it could have been used to help you."

"I know, Ellie. He did it to save over a thousand people in that concert hall. That decision had an enormous impact on me after I spent some time thinking about it and I reviewed our team mission logs. Your brother is such a natural hero on so many levels…and it seems to run in your family."

Ellie reached across the table and placed her hand on top of Sarah's, "Sarah, the Ring Intersect was a very scary thing before Quinn even captured you. We know how fearless you can be, and you've been through much worse." Ellie was thinking about the Norseman weapon, but she wasn't going to bring it up. "Trust me, Iv4 will be a lot better, but if you decide to make the decision to remove it, I'm confident that we'll be able to do it."

Sarah turned her hand over and clasped Ellie's, "I trust you, Ellie. I've spent the last several days watching the effort your team has put into this and I think I'll be ready when you are." She let a smile show in her eyes, "Being with all of you here at work has been a huge confidence builder, and I'm glad I've been around to see it. Now, if you'll excuse me," she said, as she squeezed Ellie's hand, "I'm going to go find my husband and watch him work for a while and let some of his nerdy confidence rub off on me some more."

"Alright, Sarah," Ellie said with a mirthful smile, "I have to get back to this anyway. But if you have any concerns or questions, I'll be here to listen to them."

"Thank you Ellie; see you later."

Sarah walked down the long corridor to the high security area that was built and formerly used for Casey's independent Intersect team not far from the Castle entrance into Buy More. It was now the new Intersect computer and download lab and Chuck and Manoosh's inner sanctum in Castle. As she turned the corner to head for the security scanner at the entrance she almost ran headlong into a man walking hastily down the corridor. He tried to move quickly around her but Sarah was caught in a moment of recognition and grabbed the man's upper arm as she looked at him.

"Agent Watson, isn't it? Nice to see you again. What brings you here?"

Richard Watson stiffened for an instant and then relaxed as Sarah released his arm and he looked evenly at the woman in front of him, "Mrs. Carmichael, I guess I could be asking you the same thing. I've been assigned to the security detail here, and I'm just checking the lockdown protocols. What brings you to Castle?"

"Oh, my husband is working here right now, you know. I've been hanging out with him here for the last few days."

"Is that so? I thought Charles would be at the new offices trying to get them done. Does he miss the old dungeon?"

So agent Watson was on the security detail and didn't know they were working here? Interesting. "Hardly," answered Sarah with a smile, "You should probably come to the new offices and see how many windows it has."

"Is that an invitation? I'd definitely like to see them sometime, but I hear that access is rather exclusive," he said as he crossed his arms with a smirk.

"Absolutely, but bring your boss with you and we'll give you a little tour of the place. Tell Vincent to call ahead of time, though, to make sure we're there and not locked up here in the dungeon," Sarah said as she gestured around them.

"I'll make sure I tell him that Mrs. Carmichael, I really must be going, I'm running way behind schedule as it is. Thank you for the invitation." And Agent Watson moved hastily down the corridor toward the exit to the Buy More.

Sarah regarded his retreating form curiously for a few seconds and then turned to walk down the branching corridor to the entrance of the Intersect lab where she placed her palm on the scanner plate and had her retina scanned as she simultaneously entered an access code on the keypad with her other hand. The door slid open to grant her access to the security alcove and Chuck grinned at her from the monitor on the wall as he waited for the door to close behind her. Once it was closed he tapped a key sequence on his computer keyboard and the door in front of her opened allowing her access to the lab where Chuck and Manoosh were seated at workstations facing each other.

Chuck let out a short laugh as she entered and she tilted her head to the side and looked at him, "What's so funny?"

Chuck and Manoosh exchanged a knowing look and both of them chuckled, "It's that damn automated security door. It sounds just like the doors in Duke Nukem 3D," Chuck said with a grin, "We keep expecting a Battlelord or a Sentry Drone to come through it when we hear it opening."

"A Battlelord, huh?" Sarah looked at the two of them skeptically with her arms folded across her chest, "You and your computer games. I hope I'm at least prettier than a Battlelord, although I kind of like the name."

"Oh, you're _much _prettier, and I'll bet you'd have no trouble kicking ones ass," her husband said as he flashed the Bartowski smile.

"Sarah Nukem," chuckled Manoosh, "I like the sound of it."

"One more game for the list you're going to have to show me now so I don't feel left out of the loop," she said as she walked over to sit on one of the tall chairs next to Chuck.

"One second, I'll boot it up."

"Wait a minute," Sarah said incredulously, "You have Duke Nukem on the Intersect computer?"

Chuck pointed his finger at her and laughed, "Gotcha!" Then he recoiled as her fist smacked his shoulder, "Oww! What did you do _that_ for?"

- XI -

Lori Compton and Anthony Carmichael walked into the Carmichael Industries offices carrying several large pizza boxes and buckets of hot wings and soft drinks. She laid a pizza box down in front of Morgan at the receptionist's desk. "Here you go, Morgan, a meat lovers special, just like you asked. Thanks for being such a good sport and watching the front door while we were out."

"Grape soda?" Asked Morgan with a look in his eye like something very major had been omitted.

"Oh, yeah." Lori reached into one of the bags and pulled out a six-pack of Grape Nehi in bottles and set it on the desk.

"Whoa!" Morgan went bug eyed, "The _good_ stuff! Where did you find those?"

"Hey, we don't compromise around here, and I have my sources," she said with a smile, "Maybe I'll tell you if you agree to stay on call for receptionist's duties."

Morgan's eyes narrowed as he considered the offer, "To keep me on call all you'll have to do is stock the break room frig with that nectar," he quipped.

"I think I might be able to do that. We'll have this booty down in the dining area. Why don't you grab Casey and come on down there and join us, we'll give you our after action report over lunch. Has there been any movement across the street since we called you earlier?"

"Doh!" Morgan quickly looked down at the monitor in front of him, "Nope. All our new friends are still huddled in the back of that office. I take it everything went as planned?"

Lori looked at Anthony and he rolled his eyes as she grinned at him, "Mostly, we may have one or two targets more than we had planned. Go get Casey and we'll discuss it."

Casey and Morgan walked into the dining lounge to find several pizzas spread over the bar above the sink island and Anthony and Lori sitting at one of the tables with analyst Sally Williams; a bucket of hot wings was sitting on the center of the table. Analyst Jose Espinoza was over in the corner game alcove playing the Battlezone arcade game with a slice of pizza hanging out of his mouth as he gesticulated wildly on the controls.

"Compton,Carmichael," said Casey as he reached for a slice of pepperoni with black olive, "Grimes here says the mission went well, care to share the details with us?"

Lori looked over at Anthony to give him the opportunity to start off, "Well, no one paid any attention to us when we left; their tail team went right after the bait and followed Nikki when she left. All we had to do was drive around the neighborhood a bit to verify we weren't being followed, then we parked a half block away and tagged all their vehicles and placed a camera across the alley to see who uses which one. We may have one or two extras in the mix, there were six black vehicles in that back alley. Just what is it about covert operators and the color black anyway?"

"*Hng.*" Casey started to follow up on his grunt when Nikki walked into the room with a satisfied smile on her face. "Lawson, nice of you to join us, what's so amusing?"

Nikki chuckled and pulled up a chair after taking off her black hip length leather coat and hanging it over the chair. Everyone but Casey and Lori was staring at the hardware hanging from her double shoulder rig as she sat down with a slice of pizza and a diet Coke. "That tail team was a hoot. It must have been the same one they had following me from Quinn's house, it only took about ten minutes to shake them. I had a ball following them around while they were trying to reacquire me. You should have seen the look on the third cars driver's face when he finally saw me behind him at a signal, it was priceless."

"So you've been taunting the enemy," Casey grimaced, "I hope you didn't tip our hand."

"Relax, Casey, I kept it low key and innocent and avoided eye contact. I'll bet you someone is going to be getting into a world of trouble though, and that's fine with me, dissension in the ranks and all that." Nikki smiled around a bite of pizza, "Although, I am looking forward to finally kicking that hornets nest into the bonfire. So how did the rest of it go, successful mission?"

"Yup," replied Lori, "All the vehicles are tagged with tracers. Tony got himself trapped under a van for a few minutes when one of their men came out onto the exterior stair landing for a smoke, but no one saw us."

"Hey!" Anthony Carmichael stared at Lori and scowled, "I thought you were going to keep that between us?"

Casey's phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket, as everyone dragged their amused looks away from Tony. "Yeah." He dropped his pizza back onto his plate and pushed away from the table, "Right, we'll all be right up." He looked at Nikki and smirked, "Anderson says our primary is on the move and he looks pissed, maybe your little game with the tail is paying dividends." He then changed his attention to Morgan. "Get the spy van ready, Grimes, we're probably going to have to establish remote surveillance somewhere. Pack a room surveillance kit too, we may need it."

"Right, Shall I pack your Barrett too?"

"Not a bad idea, but the MRAD with the YHM Phantom suppressor, not the .50 this time, understood?"

"I'm on it, mon Capitan." and Morgan sprinted for the armory.

"*HNMG*, Dammit, Grimes, do not speak French around my rifles!"

"Sorry!"

A couple of minutes later most of them were standing around one of the large haptic monitors in the war room watching Allen Preston and one of the other men get into an S65 AMG and drive off in a hurry. Then to their surprise two more men came running out of the building and jumped into a black SUV and went tearing off west down Colorado Boulevard.

"Well, we tagged both of those vehicles," said Carmichael, apparently relieved.

"I've got good telemetry on both of them," said Espinoza, "both headed west, the Mercedes looks like it's headed for the 110, the other one towards the 134 on-ramp now northbound on Fair Oaks Avenue, and he's moving. Anderson, you take the north one I'll take the other."

Jim Anderson at the workstation across from Jose nodded and clicked his cursor on the SUV as it was getting onto the 134 on-ramp at Maple Street.

"Sally, how many neighbors do we have across the street now," asked Casey.

"Two, sir, and one in the back alley by the remaining vehicles. Wait, three more cars just pulled up and some of the men are getting into that Dodge Sprinter van."

Nikki stepped up to haptic monitor and the swiped her hands across it to enlarge the window showing the feed from the micro surveillance camera Lori and Tony had planted in the alley. "Those are the vehicles that were tailing me earlier. Looks like six men in tactical clothing got into that van."

"I don't like what I'm seeing here," exclaimed Casey as he watched the van drive off. "Lori, get with Grimes and follow that AMG wherever it ends up. Tony, there's an armored Tahoe parked in the aux garage with the van, take that and follow Compton and Grimes. Nikki, you're with me, we're following that van, c'mon." He turned back as they were leaving the room, "Send the telemetry to our cars and notify us if you see anything strange…and call downstairs and get a couple of those NSA people up here!"

And they all ran for the elevator leaving the three new analysts wondering just what the hell was happening after only their first week on the job.

* * *

**A/N **Apologies to my French readers, it's really nothing personal, it's just Casey.


	9. Act 8

**A/N **6/16/12 – Here it is, Act 8, and it's another long one. And, unfortunately, it's probably going to be the last act until August. Sorry about that, but I originally didn't think you'd even see this act until then. Things will get very wild from this point forward if that's any consolation. So stay tuned, and I'll see you next season…

Thanks again to **uplink2 **providing beta services on this chapter. And thanks also to **somedeepmystery **for sharing your thoughts about the story with me, and also to **ww1posterfan **for your endorsement on the **Chuck This Blog. **

**I don't own Chuck.**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 8**

"We are so close, Chuck. I think we'll have the coding work done in another day or two," said Manoosh Depak as he tapped out a quick series of keystrokes and punched the Enter key with a flourish of his index finger. "Here, take a look at this." He pounded a few more keys with authority and slapped the Enter key again with a loud click.

Sarah was dozing in the chair next to Chuck and her chin came up off her palm abruptly as her elbow slipped off the edge of the tall desk Chuck's workstation was on, "What? What'd I miss?" She exclaimed with some alarm.

Chuck chuckled, "Nuttin', honey. Manoosh is just getting a little excitable about our progress…look," he said pointing at the graphic representing the progress to goal chart Dr. Depak had sent to one of his monitors, "Ninety-nine percent complete, with only ninety-nine percent to go."

"Very funny, Chuck," answered Manoosh with a roll of his eyes, "We're much closer than that, those figures take into account bug zapping and dry runs of all the code to date. I'd like to add that I found very few, well, less than a few, only two bugs that tied back to all the thousands of lines of code you've written or reviewed so far on this project. I wish I could say the same for my own record on that, I wasn't even close."

"Waitwaitwaitwait, when did you find the time to review all those lines of code and scripts? And I've never even seen a dry run completed while I was here."

"Like I told you, I don't sleep much. All that really remains to be done are less than a hundred lines of code and some API tie scripts for the brain physiology packages. Then we'll be ready to transfer the latest encoded database imagery from Ft. Meade to complete the update of the Intersect database in the monolithic memory core." Manoosh returned a satisfied smile to the incredulous looks written on Chuck and Sarah's faces. "I thought we'd do a download dry run using the new host interface room this evening if you feel like hanging around for that. I think you'll find the new holographic projection system quite impressive."

Chuck studied his friend across the table from him. Yes, over the last few days he was starting to see Monoosh Depak as a real friend as they had hammered away on this project. Manoosh had been literally living in Castle for the last ten days. Chuck didn't think he'd seen daylight in over a week, and now he realized as he looked at him that it really showed. He had been too tired and preoccupied himself up until this point to notice. "Of course we'd like to be here to see that," he looked at Sarah questioningly, "How about it Sarah, are you ready to see how all of this is supposed to work?"

Sarah gulped and sat up straight in her chair as she looked back and forth between the two men and the magnitude of the conversation sank in, "Yes, I'd like to see it…very much. Although I'm not exactly sure how seeing it can be accomplished without going through a download. How do you explain that?"

Manoosh laughed, "Well, you're right, Sarah, you can't actually be in the download room when a full blown dry run is happening, we'll be watching the progress and the results here on the control monitors. But I can demonstrate how the projection system works without actual Intersect encoded images. Basically we'll just be projecting the 3D containment shells without the imbedded imagery in them. The new Intersect will use three-dimensional geometric shapes to classify the datasets contained in them, and the datasets themselves are also layered three dimensionally. By placing the data in 3D container shells and sub-packages it can be recognized and accessed much faster by the brain, in theory almost instantaneously, and with much less strain. If I were to show you a demonstration of the container system it would almost be like formatting and partitioning a file system on a computer, but without erasing any of the data that's already in memory," he said tapping the side of his head. "All an actual download would do differently is fill the containment shells with several terabytes of data."

"Well that's a relief, no more annoying memory erasing, and _only_ a few terabytes," Sarah said with a hint of sarcasm. Her eyes had grown wide when he mentioned the word 'formatting'. She'd seen that message on a computer screen before; the one that warned 'all data already on the disk will be erased, are you sure you want to proceed?'

"Don't worry, Sarah," Manoosh said with a chuckle, "That still leaves you with, conservatively speaking, about 800 terabytes of unused space in your noggin."

"That better not be a dumb blonde joke." Her gaze had danger hiding in it.

"Oh? Ha,ha! No, that's just how much estimated untapped capacity we all have," he answered, nervously, "The human brain is severely underutilized. We all have a lot of room to spare in there."

"So, what's left to do to finish this, Manoosh?" Asked Chuck as he grinned at Sarah's reaction to his partner's description of brain capacity.

"I've sent three scripting assignments to your desktop, Chuck, and your sister has sent you an email with the file names and command indexes you'll be pointing the scripts to, they should be in your inbox now."

Chuck opened up his email and looked it over, "Yup, it's right here. I guess I'll get started on it." He and Sarah shared a nervous smile, "This is getting exciting."

"Yeah, exciting," said Sarah with a sigh, "I'll take your word for it."

- II -

As they piled out of the elevator a highly customized silver Mercedes Sprinter van screeched to a halt in front of them with Morgan Grimes at the wheel. Emblazoned on the side were the words Volton Communications in stylized comic book graphics and an orange lightning bolt surrounding the lettering. Morgan was dressed in a company uniform with the logo over his left pocket and on the ball cap he had on his head. Lori opened the sliding side door and jumped in as Tony Carmichael ran for the roll up door to the secondary parking garage. He stopped short at the door and whistled as he looked at all the vehicles in the parking area and spied several doors on the left wall of the large room. A short laugh came from him as he realized that none of the vehicles were black. "Casey! Which one of these Tahoes?" He yelled back into the main garage as he looked at the three Chevy's parked side by side.

"It doesn't matter, other than color they're all identical!" Casey shouted back, "Take the gold one!"

Tony ran to the gold four wheel drive Chevrolet Tahoe and opened the driver's door. As he was climbing in he saw a dark metallic blue Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet parked by itself in the corner of the garage. "Whoa, that's nice," he muttered under his breath, "I wonder who that belongs to?" He started the Tahoe and immediately realized that whatever was under the hood was far from stock. The engine made an absolutely intimidating sound and the large off-road tires barked as he dropped the transmission into drive and began to pull into the main garage area. As he pulled out of the aux parking area he watched the roll-up door start to come down in the rear-view mirror behind him and the main garage entry door started its way up out the windshield in front of him as he pulled in back of the van.

"We're all going out at once!" shouted Casey from the side of his car, "We need to try and confuse what's left of that surveillance team! Earbuds in, everyone!"

"Casey let's take my Cadillac," exclaimed Nikki pointing to her car, "It's faster than your Ford."

"Is it bullet resistant? Does it have a missile launcher?"

Nikki's eyes grew wide, "No," she answered sheepishly. _A missile launcher?_

"Then we're takin' the Vic," he said with a sparkle in his eye, "Climb in."

Casey opened the trunk of the Crown Victoria and grabbed a large black duffle and a nylon double rifle case. He threw them into the back seat as Nikki climbed into the front passenger seat and started to buckle up.

The Crown Victoria sprang to life and pulled to the front of the other two waiting vehicles. Casey toggled the vox circuit on his watch and punched a button on his dash that activated an amplified comm repeater. "Okay, all at once, team, turn right going out, we'll pick up the 210 at Lake Avenue." He stomped on the gas and made a hard right turn onto Colorado Blvd with the Sprinter and the Tahoe not far behind him in the rear-view mirror.

"Where the hell are _they_ going?" One of two remaining surveillance team members in the office across the street asked his partner with alarm as he watched the vehicles pull quickly eastbound onto the street too fast to I.D. the drivers or passengers in them.

"Shit! I have no idea, but we better call Preston," exclaimed the other man as he reached for his cell phone.

"Talk to us Sally," said Casey, as he pulled onto the 210 freeway westbound and activated the red and blue strobes hidden in the Crown Vics running lights and floored it.

"The van is on 134 coming up on the Glendale freeway interchange, Colonel, the SUV is about six miles ahead of it traveling the same direction," said the voice of Sally Williams over everyone's earbuds, "The AMG is on the 110 just now approaching the I-5 interchange. The van and the SUV are going about 85, the AMG about 75."

"Okay. Morgan, stay within the speed limit and plan on eventually setting up surveillance wherever that Mercedes ends up." Casey looked over at Nikki with a look of exasperation on his face, "Damn, I wish we had found a way to put a tracker on Preston before he ran off."

"Maybe we did, Casey," answered Tony Carmichael, "I scattered some sticky button trackers around the vehicles in that alley when I was tagging the cars. Maybe one of those guys picked one up on his shoe."

"Whose bright idea was that?"

"Guilty as charged," said Nikki with a grin, raising her hand.

"*Hmng*" Casey pushed another button on his dash and an LCD multi-function display came out of the middle of the dash below the radio. "Pull up the telemetry, Lawson, let's see if we can figure out where these guys are going."

Nikki looked briefly at the command options on the display for each of the keys surrounding the display bezel. "This looks familiar. There's one just like it in the F/A-18 Hornet," she said, as she rapidly moved through the command tree to pull up a moving map showing the van they were chasing as a moving icon. She studied it for moment then scowled, "Oh, crap, this doesn't look good, Casey, they're turning onto the northbound I-5."

"Damn! Sally, notify Vincent Oddo about this. Tell him we need a tactical team at the Burbank Buy More, now!"

"Calling now, Casey."

Casey pulled his phone from his pocket and punched a speed dial number. Chuck's phone went directly to voicemail. He tried Sarah's number with the same results. "Nikki, try sending Chuck a text, his phone is going directly to voicemail."

She pulled out her phone and texted: _911 pick up your phone! _And a few seconds later received a 'failed to send' notification. "No good, Casey, I think they're being jammed."

Casey punched another speed dial number. "Gertie, it's John. Where are you right now?"

"I'm in Hillcrest looking at a house with the realtor." Gertrude could sense the urgency in his voice, "Why? What's going on?"

"No time to explain, Gertie. Drop everything and get to the Buy More, we need your help. Do you have Silent Suzy with you?"

"She's always in the trunk, you know that, Johnny. I'm on my way, I'll give you an ETA when I'm on the road." Gertrude hung up and ran out of the house leaving the realtor standing in the living room with her mouth agape.

"Gertie?" Nikki asked with an ear-to-ear grin, "You know you left your vox circuit on, don't you? And who is Silent Suzy?"

They heard laughter that could only have been Morgan's coming through their earbuds.

Casey turned bright red. "Put a sock in it, Grimes!"

- III -

"Damn you, McKay. What the hell were you thinking running an op without notifying us! What the fuck are you doing?" Sloan yelled into the phone.

"Relax, Edgar, I'm giving you what you wanted. The op hasn't changed; we just had to bump up the timetable. I'm getting your Intersect tech back, and if it works out I'll have a bonus for you, a human Intersect to play with also. We had to move while we had a window of opportunity. We only found out about it a short while ago."

"Fuck, McKay, you should have told us what was going on! I have an eight man team on route to back you up. They'll be there in ten minutes. If this goes south your head will be sitting on the corner of my desk! And what's this garbage about a human Intersect?"

"There is a human Intersect agent in Castle right now. I'll get you your damned equipment, Sloan, just like we planned," Simon McKay coolly replied, "Now I suggest you take a chill pill and be ready for our arrival. If I have my way, we're going to get everything we wanted, and much more." McKay ended the call.

Edgar Sloan slammed the phone on the receiver and then brought his other fist crashing onto his desk almost knocking his PC monitor over. "Damn him!"

- IV -

Richard Watson inserted two long bars on a ratcheting lock mechanism through the door handles of the double door leading from the Buy More sales floor to the break room and stock area at the back of the store, effectively barricading the back of the store from the front. As he walked back to the break room he stepped over the bodies of two NSA agents in green Buy More shirts laying in the hallway and motioned two men dressed in tactical gear carrying FN P90's to take up position at the corner of the hallway leading to the front of the store. As he walked into the break room he acknowledged Simon McKay and their eight man tactical team with a nod and motioned toward the security camera on the ceiling with his gun, "Comms have been shut down, the cameras are looped, the security system has been bypassed and the other teams are in position. We're ready."

"Excellent, then let's get started, shall we?" Simon motioned to the lockers, "Time to open this door."

Watson reached into the locker that served as the hiding spot for the palm access scanner to Castle and placed his palm on the scanner plate at the back of the locker. There was a heavy clicking sound and the section of lockers swung back accompanied by the sound of an electric motor. The group descended the stairs into Castle and McKay motioned to two of the men to take guard positions at the bottom of the stairs. The rest of the group slowly moved down the long concrete subterranean hallway toward the holding cells and the command center beyond them. McKay and Watson lead the group with McKay holding a tranq pistol up and ready and Watson held a suppressed Sig P220.

- V -

"That's odd, I'm not getting a cell signal," said Chuck as he looked at his phone before calling to check in with Nikki Lawson.

"The base repeater must be offline," responded Manoosh casually as he kept typing away on his keyboard.

"No, that's a triple redundant system, not supposed to happen." Chuck looked up at Sarah and she nodded to him as her eyes narrowed slightly. He pulled up the Castle communications system on his computer and scanned the status of all the inbound and outbound communications of the base. Sarah walked over to one of the peripheral workstations and started to look at the security feeds.

"Nothing seems abnormal here, Chuck," said Sarah pointing to a tiled image of six different camera feeds as she toggled through them with the space bar.

"All three repeaters are down, that is _not _supposed to happen," Chuck repeated, mostly it seemed to himself. He picked up the desk phone at his workstation and speed dialed the Carmichael Industries office only to be greeted by a fast-busy signal. He dialed the extension in the command center with the same result. He punched the intercom button and was greeted with silence. "We have a problem."

Now he had Manoosh's attention and the doctor picked up his desk phone to try it as a growing look of alarm spread across his face.

Chuck walked over to Sarah and looked at the camera feeds over her shoulder. He then reached around her and started to scroll through the individual feeds and stopped at the one of the command center and studied it for a few seconds.

"Hold it, Chuck," said Sarah pointing at the monitor, "Look."

He peered quickly at his watch, "Frakfrakfrak," he said looking at the master clock display she was pointing at on the wall in the picture, "That was almost ten minutes ago!"

"You're right, we do have a problem," exclaimed Sarah as her demeanor slipped into spy mode.

"Just a second." Chuck started to type furiously on the keyboard. "When I designed this system I installed firewalled redundant feeds just for this sort of event." He smiled at the look of surprise on Sarah's face, "Hey, I don't even want to think about how many of these things we've looped on our own missions over the last five years, it seemed like the prudent thing to do. I buried the redundant feed deep enough so it would take a first class hack to find it."

After a few more seconds of rapid fire typing the pictures on the camera feeds suddenly changed to reveal several men duck walking down the access corridor from the Buy More. They watched as the men walked past the corridor leading to the room they were in. The two men at the lead of the group both looked right at the camera above the door leading into the Intersect lab. Both Chuck and Sarah flashed when they saw Simon McKay's face. As they blinked out the flash looking at each other Chuck was the first to speak, "He used to work for Clyde Decker!"

Sarah returned a tight-lipped nod as a very ugly history of the man Chuck referred to tickled at her memory, "That was Agent Richard Watson with him, it's curious he isn't in the Intersect."

"Sarah!" Manoosh's face was ashen as he stared at her, "Are you flashing?"

She looked back at the doctor like she had just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, "Y-Yes, it started happening a couple of days ago after you gave me the governor."

Manoosh ran his hand over his face in exasperation, "Why didn't you tell anyone? I'm not so sure you should be doing that."

"It's only happened a couple of times, Manoosh, and it doesn't appear to be causing any major problems," said Sarah apologetically. "The governor seems to be controlling the intensity, and you and Ellie have had much larger things on your table the last few days."

"Then you just make sure you leave that governor on, Sarah. My concern is what could happen if you're not wearing it." Manoosh walked over to his desk and pulled a small metal disk that looked like a tan anodized button battery from a drawer. "Here, I meant to give this to you this morning. Keep it for an emergency. Just peel off the adhesive backing and squeeze it hard to activate it. You can stick it anywhere but behind one of your ears is probably most effective. It will last for about twelve hours."

Sarah fixed a concerned gaze on him as she accepted it and slipped it into the coin pocket of her jeans and nodded her understanding before slipping back into spy mode and turning back to Chuck. "We have to do something to stop those guys, Chuck, Ellie and the rest of the science team are in the command center."

"I know." Chuck moved back to the security camera feed and checked all of them sequentially. "There are a total of ten men. Two at the bottom of the stairs leading from Buy More and eight headed for the command center counting McKay and Watson. Body armor, P90's, handguns and tranq guns." He looked thoughtfully at the screen for a minute. "Why the tranq guns?"

"They might be here to abduct someone," said Sarah confirming her husband's suspicions judging from the look in his eyes. "We need to arm ourselves, and these guys look like our best opportunity to do that," she added, pointing to the men at the base of the stairs leading to the Buy More.

"Chuck, what about your sister? Those men look they're almost to the command center," said Manoosh clearly distressed as he jumped from his seat and started to head for the door.

Sarah grabbed him by the elbow as he was going by her, "Where do you think you're going Doctor? If you go out there you'll only make matters worse. By the time you get to the control room they'll already have Ellie, and then you too."

"Dammit, we _can't_ let anything happen to Ellie, Sarah," exclaimed Manoosh, "Tell her, Chuck…she's your sister!"

The pain on Chuck's face couldn't have been more obvious, "Sarah's right, Manoosh, we need you to stay here while we rescue my sister. When we get her we'll bring her back here. This is the most secure area in Castle and only the four of us have complete access to this lab from the second security door. So, please, sit tight while we take care of this."

Chuck and Sarah stepped quickly to the door, "I wish we had a couple of those Duke Nukem sentry drones right about now," lamented Chuck as he turned to look at Manoosh before opening it.

Sarah looked from her husband to Manoosh over her shoulder and locked her eyes on his, "Stay here Manoosh. Do. Not. Leave. Do I make myself clear? We need you…I need you. If you get yourself into trouble trying to be a hero I'll never forgive you…I have enough problems with Chuck."

Chuck rolled his eyes and looked at his wife with mock offense then pushed the door actuator switch after a quick glance at the security monitors. As they stepped through the outer door and looked down the hall Chuck looked at Sarah and asked, "Well, do you have any ideas how we should take out those two guys, my super-ninja-spy girl?"

She smirked at him and grabbed his hand as she started to walk down the corridor to where it joined the main passage, "I do, but I don't think you're going to like it."

- VI -

Ellie Woodcomb was sitting at the conference table in the main room of Castle. She was discussing the final preparations for the personalized Iv4 download packages with six of her science team members when eight heavily armed men clad in black walked into the room with their weapons leveled at them.

Simon McKay smiled at all the very startled faces around the table and motioned with the barrel of his tranq gun when one of the men started to get to his feet. "Unh, uh, no heroics, sit down…NOW," he added when the man hesitated.

"Sit down, Albert," exclaimed Ellie, with a look of shock on her face and her hands balled into fists on the table in front of her, "Do you want to get yourself killed?"

The middle-aged member of Ellie's team settled back into his chair with a combination of resignation and anger written on his face. "What are you doing here? What do you want?" He asked, looking intensely at McKay with a livid edge to his voice.

"Oh, I think you know exactly why I'm here and what I want, and at least one of you is going to help me get it," responded McKay evenly as he motioned to one of his men and gestured to the row of computer racks behind a glass wall on one side of the room. The man walked into the space through the sliding glass doors, removed a small backpack from his back and pulled a black box from it followed by some rolled up cables, inspecting the equipment in the racks as he set the high capacity data capture module at the base of one of the racks. He then pulled a keyboard/monitor drawer from the middle of the rack, opened the folded monitor, and started to work at the keyboard. After a moment he turned and nodded curtly to Simon McKay before he reached into his pack and pulled a battery powered screwdriver from it and started to quickly remove the screws from several of the rack panels.

"Now, Dr. Woodcomb, you and your associate here," he motioned to a young woman sitting to Ellie's right, "Get up, and move over to that wall."

Ellie and her research assistant, whose eyes were as big as tea saucers, exchanged tense looks and slowly started to rise. Albert quickly started to rise again from his seat and yelled, "Now see here, if you want anything leave these women out of it, I'll-"

*Thwack* Simon shot him in the throat with a tranq dart and Albert tumbled over the back of the chair behind him landing with a sickening thud punctuated by the dull crack of his head hitting the floor. McKay swung the gun back on Ellie and her assistant, "MOVE_."_

Ellie placed her hand on her assistants forearm in an attempt to calm her, "It's alright, Ann, just do as he says and we'll get through this."

"That's the spirit, Doctor," Simon said laconically, "If you follow my instructions to the letter all of you will come out of this alive. However, if someone else tries to do anything like what this idiot did…" He motioned to Albert's body on the ground, then to Richard Watson who casually waved the barrel of his suppressed Sig and smiled thinly.

Ellie glared at Watson then shifted her gaze back to McKay, "Let one of us look at Albert," she requested with a hint of defiance in her voice, "He hit his head on the floor awfully hard."

"I'll let one of your other associates look him over." He motioned to three of his team members and then to the four remaining doctors and scientists sitting at the table and the still body lying on the floor, "Take these people to the detention cells and keep an eye on them. Let one them have a look at their colleague's head."

Two of the men jerked the remaining team members from their seats and ordered two of the male doctors to pick up their unconscious team member and carry him from the room while the third armed man lead the way. "Now, Dr. Woodcomb, let's pay a visit to the Fab Lab," said McKay as he gestered down the connecting hall with his tranq pistol.

As they reached the door to the fabrication lab Ellie stopped in front of the palm scanner by the door and, once again, glared at Simon McKay in defiance. McKay grabbed her roughly by the wrist as Richard Watson grabbed Ellie's assistant by the shoulder and placed the end of the suppressor against her head as Ann Kelly gasped. "Open the door, Doctor, I'm only going to say it once," McKay said as he guided her hand up to the scanner and he placed her palm onto it while Ellie punched in an access code with her other hand.

- VII -

Casey pulled into the Buy More parking lot and stopped just inside the entrance driveway briefly while he and Nikki scanned the lot for threats. The black SUV they had tracked was parked in front of Cobra Holdings, but the van was nowhere to be seen. "Let's pull up in front of the store, Casey, I want to do a quick recon of the sales floor."

Casey grunted in reluctant affirmation and pulled the Crown Vic in front of the Buy More off to the side of the front doors. Nikki opened her door and stepped out toward the doors while the car was still moving. As she walked up to automated doors and started to step through the first set into the entry alcove she saw Big Mike walk from his office and trundle up to the double doors leading to the back of the store…and bounce off of them with a look of angry confusion on his face and a "What the hell?" that she could hear through the closed sliding door in front of her. Mike shook the doors violently as several store 'associates' started to trot toward the doors as well. Nikki was suddenly astonished to see Big Mike dive rather nimbly to the side of the doors, eyes wide, as the sound of hail on a tin roof filled the air and the metal and wire reinforced glass of the double doors was instantly perforated with multiple bullet holes. Nikki quickly dropped to a crouch with her suppressed pistol raised as several 5.7 millimeter bullets struck the glass of the door in front of her and one of the sales associates went to the ground struck in the abdomen while the rest scattered for cover and customers scrambled for the doors in panic. She lowered her gun to her side as she watched the panicked customers running toward her and spun around to run back to Casey's car now stopped in front of the doors with the passenger door open.

She dove into the car and Casey gunned it causing the door to swing shut as he pulled away. "Around back!" Nikki exclaimed quickly calming herself, "They've blocked the rear of the store. They must be using the back entrance."

Casey spun the wheel hard over and accelerated around in a one-eighty punctuated with the sound of the racing engine and squealing rubber, circling around the parked cars in the lot, and then around the store to the back entrance at the loading dock. They slid around the back corner of the store and came to a screeching halt. Parked in front of them crossways blocking the driveway was the van they had been chasing and two more beyond it. Six men standing next to the van with FN P90's leveled their weapons on them and opened up on the Crown Victoria as Casey and Nikki reflexively dropped down out of the line of fire behind the bullet resistant glass and composite armor of the car. Casey cursed while Nikki shouted over the deafening din of bullets striking the bodywork, "I'm sure glad I didn't talk you into taking my Cadi! What now?"

"Dammit," Casey yelled for the third time, "Those bastards are going to pay for this!" He reached across Nikki and opened his glove box, "Grab those M-4's for us," he shouted, pointing to the back seat as he armed the rocket concealed in the cars headlight with the switch in the glove box. Nikki dove over the seat and was pulling the rifles from the case in the back seat when Casey mashed the second button to launch the missile and it shot away from the car with a loud whoosh and homed in on the hot engine block of the van only about sixty feet away. The missile exploded with a thunderclap that flipped the van over from front to back in a cloud of flying shrapnel, pieces of auto bodywork, and asphalt. The flying van landed on its roof right on top of one of the men shooting at them, crushing him, and the rest were thrown to the ground by the concussion of the explosion. Casey and Nikki flung the drivers side front and rear doors open simultaneously and stepped quickly out behind the armored doors. Nikki pulled the charging handle back sharply then tossed an M-4 to Casey and reached in the car to drag the duffle from the rear seat onto the ground at her feet. Just as Casey brought the rifle to his shoulder the armored door window glass in front of him spider webbed with a loud smack and he whipped the rifle on target through the crook over the door hinge and shot the adversary crouched in the store rear doorway with a three round burst that dropped him like a sack of potatoes. Three of the men knocked to the ground by the exploding van were now starting to pick themselves back up.

"Here," Nikki shouted, and she shoved a ballistic plate carrier vest with several magazine pouches attached to the front of it under the back car door between his legs, "Let's get the hell out of here, we're too exposed!" And she scrambled around to the back of the car as Casey grabbed the vest and shoved the rear door shut to follow her. Casey started to don his vest as Nikki quickly popped up to peer through the rear vehicle glass and assess the situation only to be greeted by more bullets slapping the armored glass and bodywork. She dropped back down and swiftly took aim around the side of the car dropping one of the assailants with a burst into his legs. A hail of bullets then struck the Crown Vic from the direction of loading dock and from around the wrecked van.

"I'm on em', get your vest on," Casey shouted over the suppressed sound of supersonic bullets cracking the air all around them.

"I'm already wearing it! I had the first shift, remember?" She replied, her eyes sparkling with humor despite their dire situation.

They exchanged unspoken words with their eyes and popped up to fire on their quadrants when they heard the staccato smack of bullets rapidly striking bone almost instantly followed by the supersonic crack of passing rifle bullets. Four men behind boxes on the loading dock fell in lifeless heaps below clouds of red vapor. Casey spun around and looked behind them, and he raised a thumb and grinned at his girlfriend, Gertrude Verbanski, as she smiled back at him over the scope of a bipod mounted M-4 sniper rifle with a barrel that looked like it was mostly silencer can, perched over the top of her car about a hundred and fifty yards behind them on the road above the parking lot parapet wall.

He looked over to see Nikki nodding with approval, "Lawson, get over to the office and see if you can get into Castle that way. We'll see if we can get in this way."

"Roger that, Casey. Tell Gertie thanks for the assist," she said beaming at him as she tossed him her M-4 and drew one of her suppressed STI pistols from her shoulder rig.

Casey smiled broadly back at Nikki and cuffed her affectionately on the shoulder as she scampered off around the corner of the store. Gertrude watched the exchange with interest through her riflescope before she swung Silent Suzy back to the loading dock to engage the adversaries attempting to come out the rear door.

- VIII -

They stood at the bottom of the stairway staring down the corridor as they listened to the sound of someone running toward them; and a slender woman wearing jeans, a hoodie, and orange Converse sneakers came sliding around the corner some seventy feet from them and dashed down the hall toward them alternating between looking over her shoulder and looking at them with a fearful look in her eyes. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, and it bobbed and flew around as she ran.

"Help! Help! They've got guns!" She exclaimed hysterically as she ran toward them.

"It's her, hold your fire," one the men in black tactical clothing muttered to his partner as they watched the young woman running toward them at breakneck speed.

"Stop! Don't come any closer or we'll shoot!" Yelled one of the men at Sarah Walker as she skidded to a stop about ten feet from the two men with an expression of wild eyed fear written on her face.

"Oh, damn!" She said upon 'realizing' the men in front of her weren't friendly, "What is going on here? What do you men want? Please, don't shoot!"

One of the men started to reach for the radio on his shoulder when Sarah took another step toward them causing him to come up short and level his P90 at her.

"Don't!" His partner shouted as he dropped his weapon on it's sling around his neck and started to pull a tranquilizer pistol from a holster on his vest.

Sarah flashed. Then suddenly they all looked down the hallway as they heard the sound of large feet slapping the concrete floor at a dead run and Chuck Bartowski rounded the corner with his arms flailing madly for balance as he turned the corner in the hallway and his Chuck Taylor's came tromping loudly towards them. It was all the distraction Sarah needed and still looking over her shoulder down the hallway toward Chuck she took two quick steps forward and landed a fierce outside-in crescent kick to the temple of the man standing in front of her. The ball of her right foot hit her adversary with such force the man's head and neck made a sickening snapping sound and he flew violently into his partner next to him knocking the second man off balance as the recipient of the explosively aggressive kick was flung toward the floor unconscious or worse. Sarah settled her stance as the remaining enemy agent recovered and finished pulling his tranq gun, firing it as she sidestepped and ducked. She blocked his gun arm with a sweeping motion of her left arm on the man's wrist, as her right arm flew up vertically, augmented by the force of her now quickly rising stance. The base of her palm struck his chin with a loud crack as the man's jaw was slammed rearward into the nerve bundle in its joints, rendering him instantly out cold. His feet left the floor and he flew backwards landing on his back on the stairs behind him with a loud clang when he hit the metal steps.

"Whoa! That was close!" she heard Chuck exclaim a few steps behind her with a pronounced exhale as she spun around to look at him with alarm.

Chuck was standing there, rocked back onto his heals with his left hand in front of his enlarged eyes holding a tranq dart between his thumb and forefinger – he had caught the dart out of the air as it was flying towards his face.

"Wow, nice catch, sweetie," said Sarah, wide eyed, "sorry, I shouldn't have let him get a shot off."

"Are you kidding me? That was awesome! You put those dudes down hard with two blows. I guess you've been eating your Wheaties," he answered with unmasked admiration.

Sarah grinned back at him and then turned to pick up the tranq pistol from which Chuck had caught the dart and tossed it to her husband after engaging the safety. She then grabbed the sling of the suppressed P90 and pulled the weapon from the unconscious enemy agent along with his silenced Sig pistol which she stuffed into the back of her waistband and the man's radio, which she clipped to the edge of her front pants pocket. She grabbed the second agents tranq gun from his holster and fired two darts into each of the men before tossing the gun to Chuck and taking a spare tranq dart magazine from the man's vest also tossing it to him.

Sarah looked down the hall, "We have to move quick, we may have been heard," she said, with a hushed tone, and then she started to move down the corridor with the P90 up and Chuck close behind her with his tranq gun up in his right hand and his left hand resting on her right shoulder. Sarah removed her left hand from the front grip of her weapon and patted Chuck's hand on her shoulder with a smile and then turned to him briefly giving him a kiss before they shuffled quietly down the hall. Just as they reached the junction of the hallway leading to the Intersect download lab there was a sound like the hand of God slapping the ceiling above them.

"What was that?" asked Chuck as they locked eyes.

"An explosion upstairs. My money is on Casey," responded Sarah with a gleam in her eye.

- IX -

Nikki Lawson ran down the side of the Buy More store with her suppressed handgun held concealed and ready close to her leg. As she reached the front corner of the store she brought the weapon up in an isosceles stance braced against the corner of the building and swept the area in front of the store with her eyes scanning for enemies. Customers were still pouring from the front doors into the parking lot and shouting could be heard coming from the inside of the store. Satisfied that there were no armed adversaries she holstered the handgun and sprinted across the parking lot towards the offices of Cobra Holdings Corporation. There was no one in the SUV she and Casey had followed here that was now parked at the curb in front of the offices. Nikki ran around the front of the vehicle and up to the edge of the windows of the office reception area next to the front door. In the reflection of a glazed picture on the reception area wall she could see a man in a business suit sitting at the receptionists desk. Without a seconds hesitation she walked to the door and stepped into the reception area.

"Hi, where is Greta today?" She asked the man evenly, carefully appraising his body language as he sat behind the desk.

"Greta fell ill rather suddenly," the man answered with a smirk, "so I'm sitting in for her for the rest of the afternoon. Can I help you with something?" His hands moved below the edge of the desk to his lap.

"No, I'm afraid you'll be no help to me. I'm headed downstairs, tell the security officer I'm heading in."

"I don't think so, Miss, you're not looking very well either," he said, leaning forward.

Nikki quickly sidestepped to her right and crossed her arms across her chest. Both of her suppressed STI pistols came flashing out of her coat and she dove to the ground and rolled as the desktop in front of the seated man splintered from the bullets coming through it towards where she had been standing a split second before. As she came up on one knee her assailant was rising from his seat, gun in hand, and a second one was coming into view in the security office doorway with his gun leveled at her. Both of her pistols fired twice simultaneously and the men's heads snapped back viciously from the impact of the four 230 grain .45 caliber bullets striking them in their foreheads.

Both men then toppled to the floor with a thud. "I'm feeling just fine," she said to the startled and glazed eyes staring up at her, "But I think both of you asshats are going to need some Tylenol," she added, grimly, as she holstered one of the pistols and stepped into the security office towards the palm scanner.

- X -

Simon McKay and his three associates walked out of the Fab Lab carrying a duffle bag with Ellie and Ann Kelly walking at gunpoint in front of them. As they stepped into the server area their computer man looked up. "Right on schedule," he said as he pulled the cables from the racks and started to place the data capture device back into his backpack, "We have a complete database download, plus some more. I wish we had time to stay around a bit, they appear to be doing some interesting things here we hadn't considered, but judging from that explosion a minute ago I get the feeling it's time to go."

McKay walked over to one of the computer consoles and started to pull up the security feed from upstairs in the Buy More.

"You can forget that," his tech man said, "the feed quit a few minutes ago, but it was up long enough to show both our planned exits have been compromised. The men at our primary egress point have been killed. We're going to have to use the third option."

"Very well," said McKay with a scowl, "It's time to go. We'll collect Dr. Depak and the Bartowskis on the way out." He prodded Ellie with the barrel of his pistol and moved towards the corridor leading to Buy More meeting up with their three other men at the holding cells along the way.

As they turned one of the corners in the long corridor that lead under the parking lot to the Buy More they came face-to-face with Chuck and Sarah Bartoswki. Sarah raised her weapon at them and two of McKays men in front responded in kind.

"STOP," yelled McKay, "lower your weapons, or I'll kill Dr. Woodcomb and her friend." He held his suppressed Glock 26 to Ellie's head using her as a shield as Richard Watson did the same with Ann Kelly.

Sarah kept her P90 up pointed at McKay. "Fat chance, you scumbucket, the only way you're getting out of here is in a body bag."

"Tsk, Tsk, that's very bold and colorful language Agent Walker, I wonder how your husband feels about it?" McKay smiled thinly and jerked his chin toward the pained expression on Chuck's face.

"Sarah…" Chuck started to say.

"Chuck, we can't…you know it," she said with hooded eyes and her mouth drawn into a taut line.

McKay started to walk forward with Ellie and pressed the silencer of his handgun into the side of her head as he held her head firmly by her hair. "You can, Agent Walker, and you will. All of you are going with us or Chuck's sister is going to die right here and now." McKay's eyes had the very hard and cold look of a remorseless sociopath.

"Sarah, we have to. It's Ellie and Ann. This isn't over…we'll find another way." Chuck reached forward and placed his hand on his wife's weapon pushing the muzzle down. She looked over at him with a hard but very pained expression written on her face. Chuck lowered his tranq gun and placed it on the concrete floor at his feet.

"Dammit, Chuck," Sarah exclaimed. She unslung the P90 and set it on the floor, "This isn't going to end well. You know the rules about hostage situations."

"We'll find another way," Chuck repeated looking her in the eye as he started to back away from the weapons on the ground, edging back toward the junction in the hallway a dozen steps behind them.

They managed to take a half dozen steps back before Simon said, "That's far enough, Mr. Bartowski," as he and his men stepped toward Chuck and Sarah closing the distance between them. "Turn around and place your other weapons on the ground. TWO FINGERS…NOW, " he yelled as he ground the end of the silencer into Ellie's temple.

Chuck and Sarah exchanged another hard look and turned to remove the weapons from the backs of their pants waistbands using two fingers as ordered, placing them on the ground at their feet. McKay's men moved forward and held tranq pistols on them as they collected the weapons.

"Thank you for your cooperation," said McKay with a thin smile as he released his grip on Ellie's hair and shoved her forward towards Chuck and Sarah.

As McKay walked up to them and they started to turn to walk up the hallway Sarah and Chuck saw a suppressor mounted on a uniquely familiar handgun leading around the corner down the hallway behind Simon McKay and his men. Nikki Lawson stepped out into the hallway and silently raised her weapon. Richard Watson's head snapped forward and ruptured as a double-tap struck the back of his skull. Ann Kelly fell to one knee screaming, her face covered in blood and gray matter. Pandemonium ensued as Nikki dropped another two of McKay's men between her and McKay as they whirled their weapons around to bear on her. Chuck and Sarah each grabbed Ellie and Ann and shoved them towards the hallway leading to the Intersect download room as Nikki started to advance down the hallway now with both her pistols up akimbo and a steely look of determination on her face. McKay and his remaining four men had stepped behind Chuck and Sarah and pulled them back into the corridor out of Nikkis's line of fire while they held their weapons trained on them. Then hearing a mechanical sound, McKay spun around and saw that Ellie and her assistant had disappeared through the security door at the end of the hallway. He cursed as he raised his radio to utter a short command.

"Give it up," shouted Nikki Lawson from down the hallway, "There's no way you're going to make it out of here!"

"On the contrary Ms. Lawson, you're the one who isn't going to be getting out of here," McKay shouted back around the corner before he turned to look at the security station next to the entry door to the lab in disgust.

Suddenly six more men burst down the stairs from Buy More and laid a withering blanket of fire down the corridor towards Nikki. She dropped to one knee and immediately shot two of the men before diving back to cover around the corner in the hallway. Seeing an opening Chuck and Sarah both lashed out at the men around them in a flurry of feet and fists before gradually falling unconscious in a heap in each others arms with tranq darts in their backs from Simon McKay's pistol. McKay gathered up the duffle Watson had been carrying and motioned to his men as they picked themselves up from the sudden beat down they had received from the hands and feet of Chuck and Sarah. "Get these two, dammit, we're getting the hell out of here."

McKay's men picked up the unconscious Chuck and Sarah and retreated down the corridor behind a line of his men towards the stairs leading up to the Buy More. As they exited into the break room three men stayed behind and kept up cover fire on Nikki at the other end of the corridor from the top of the stair landing with their FN P90's. Nikki stepped out into the corridor to engage them, dropping one of them from the top of the landing onto his head on the concrete below. Then her foot slid on something slippery on the floor causing her to lose her footing and she dove back behind the corner of the hallway as bullets impacted the wall next to her. She looked down to see blood pouring from a wound in her right leg into a puddle on the floor.

Nikki toggled the push-to-talk switch on the transceiver on her watch, "Casey! Chuck and Sarah have been tranqed and abducted, they're coming your way!" But there was nothing but static in her earbud, "Casey!…Casey!…Damn!" She pulled her belt from her pants and started to wrap it around the bullet wound.

- XI -

Casey and Gertrude continued to engage multiple enemy agents at the rear of the store making little headway towards the loading dock entrance because of the heavy block construction of the rear of the store and continual fire from the rear doorway. However, none of the enemy agents were getting out of the store either because as soon as any of them tried to exit the backdoor of the store Casey or Gertrude quickly cut them down. They were starting to pile up on the loading dock and the sight of all the bodies had stifled the will for anyone else to try and come out. The sound of sirens was starting to be heard coming from points around the store and several helicopters could be heard in the air. Casey looked over his shoulder and saw a UH-60 Blackhawk flying in low from the east and a police helicopter circling about five hundred feet overhead. All of the sudden the Blackhawk exploded and fell to the ground in a long agonizing arc, a tangled ball of wreckage and flying rotor blades and debris. Casey looked up to see a smoke trail leading to the point of the explosion where the helicopter had once been from the roof of the Buy More over his head. Another smoke trail erupted from the roof and he watched the MANPAD rocket erupt about twenty feet away from the police helicopter in a dirty brown explosion that caused the chopper to spin wildly out of control and crash onto several cars in the parking lot as bystanders scrambled to get out of the way. Several news helicopters that had been lingering nearby quickly turned tail and flew away from the area.

Casey looked back at his girlfriend and watched as she panned her rifle towards the roof to engage the targets there. She took several shots, then there was the sound of machine gun fire and Gertrude's car was engulfed in smoke and dust and riddled with bullet holes as she ducked down behind it. He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He answered it and heard Gertrude shout, "Son-of–a-bitch! They've got MANPADS and a SAW on that roof! Who are these freakin' people?"

Then another helicopter could be heard coming in and Casey looked up again to see a Bell 430 swooping in to settle over the roof of the Buy More in a hover. He looked back to Gertrude again and watched her try to bring her rifle to bear again towards the roof only to have to duck behind the car again as it continued to be shot full of holes by machine gun fire.

"What are you trying to do? Stay down Gertie!" He shouted into the phone.

"Johnny! They've got Chuck and Sarah! They're on that helicopter!"

"WHAT?" _Oh, damn!_

The helicopter lifted off and swooped away at low level as another one, this time a Bell 230, came in to extract some of the remaining tactical team on the roof. Gertrude stood up and engaged them offhand with Silent Suzy. The machinegun fire abruptly stopped and the helicopter settled heavy onto the roof as Gertrude emptied her magazine into the cockpit. The roof of the Buy More wasn't designed to hold the weight of an 8000 pound helicopter concentrated into such a small area and it disappeared into the store. A cloud of dust, debris, and rotor blade fragments shot from the front doors of the store as it all came crashing down on the sales floor below with a dull roar. A few seconds later Big Mike came staggering out of the doors covered in grit and choking on the dust.

Casey had had more than enough. He charged the rear door to the Buy More with his M-4 engaging targets on the run until the magazine was empty and then pulled his Sig from the small of his back dropping two more enemy agents as he advanced through the rear of the store towards the entrance to Castle. Gertrude frantically reloaded to cover her boyfriends back from the remaining enemy agents around the vehicles below the loading dock, quickly dropping two of them before the remainder once again scrambled for cover and Casey ran into the store and out of sight.

- XII -

John Casey walked around several black clad bodies lying in the corridors of Castle as he made his way towards the command center with his handgun up and ready to shoot any enemy agents still present in the subterranean base. As he approached the infirmary he heard a feminine groan of pain. He rounded the doorway frame to see Nikki Lawson on an examination table that was covered in smeared blood surrounded by several doctors working on what appeared to be a bullet wound in her thigh. There was an IV bag hanging over her and her black jeans were sliced open almost up to the waistband. In spite of the apparent wound Casey caught himself admiring the toned and tanned leg and blushed when he saw Nikki looking at him with a big grin on her face mixed with a grimace.

"Damn, Lawson, did you get yourself shot? I thought that was _my_ specialty."

"Yes, I finally let someone shoot me, Casey. There's a first time for everything. Hopefully this will be the last, for this."

Ellie looked very intensely back and forth between the two agents, "You're very lucky, Nikki," she exclaimed, "The bullet narrowly missed your femoral artery. Fortunately it was through and through, and didn't fragment or tumble. No major damage, except hydrostatic shock."

"It still hurts like hell," observed Nikki with a tight-lipped smile, as Ellie wrapped gauze tightly around the sutures she had just completed. "Thanks for patching me up, Ellie." She turned back to Casey. "Where are Chuck and Sarah, Casey?"

"Captured," Casey said, with a downcast frown, his mouth drawn into a grim line.

"What? No!" Nikki started to step down off the table and her breath hitched as her foot settled on the floor. "What are we doing here? Let's go, we need to find them!"

Ellie's face turned to one of shock as she looked again between Casey and Nikki then recomposed herself when she realized what Nikki was trying to do and reached out to grab her, "Wait a minute! Hold on, Nikki, you shouldn't be putting any weight on that at all."

"Just give me something minimal for the pain, Ellie, I still need to be able to function. I'm not going to sit still while Chuck and Sarah are in the hands of those assholes. C'mon, Casey help me out here," she said placing her hand on his shoulder for support, "Let's get to the command center and get started, we haven't got a moment to lose."

- XIII -

Morgan Grimes pulled the spy van up to the curb across the street from the underground parking entrance to the twenty-four-story Century West office building in Century City. Tensions were high in the vehicle because they had been listening in to the action at the Buy More over their earbuds and they were all resisting the urge to get back on the freeway and head to Castle to help Casey and Nikki.

"The target vehicle is in there," said Lori Compton looking across him toward the building across the street as she slid into the passenger seat of the van next to Morgan. The sliding side door to the van opened and Anthony Carmichael stepped into a seat in front of one of the surveillance consoles and the tension increased thirty-three and a third percent. They all exchanged an anxious look between them as they silently communicated their desire to know more information about what was happening across town and where Chuck and Sarah might have been taken. Anthony ran his hands through his short black hair and exhaled forcibly with exasperation before turning to the console in front of him and trying to set up a video link between them and Castle.

After a few minutes of work at the keyboard, Anthony scowled at the monitor in front of him and then shifted his gaze to Morgan and Lori. "Direct communications to Castle are still down. Sally says she hasn't been able to reach them either, and she and the other analysts think we lost comm with Casey and Nikki because they are in Castle and the repeaters are still down along with the rest of the systems. It looks like we're on our own here for a little while."

Morgan climbed out of the drivers seat and moved to a seat in the back of the van next to Tony. He started to grab some bags of equipment from a storage locker and was setting them next to the sliding door when he looked back up at his two teammates, "I just thought of something," he exclaimed as he pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and started scroll his contact list. "I'm sending both of you a number, you may need it." Then he punched the call button, and placed the phone on speaker after he activated the vox circuit on his tactical transceiver.

"Hello, Morgan, what can I do for you?" The voice on the other end of the line asked, somewhat breathlessly.

"Hi Gertrude, I'm glad I could reach you. I'm on an assignment that Casey gave us along with a couple of colleagues. It may be connected to what is happening at the Buy More and we need additional information. We've been out of communications with Casey for a while, can you tell us what's going on there? The last thing we heard was you telling John that Chuck and Sarah were on a helicopter. What happened?"

They all listened as Gertrude gave them a rundown of what had happened since she had arrived at the store to back Casey up. She was now outside the store with several Agency people from the JPL Annex securing the scene and she had been just been informed by a runner that Castle was secure, everyone inside was okay, and that they were trying to get the communications systems back up. She had witnessed Chuck and Sarah being put onto the helicopter and they were unconscious. As Gertrude was describing the helicopter to them they all looked up at each other with a start as they heard the sound of beating rotor blades reverberating off of the buildings around them.

Morgan yanked the sliding side door open and jumped out of the van to look up, "Gertrude, you said that helicopter was black with orange stripes down the side?"

"No, I hadn't got to that part yet, but those are its colors. Why do you ask?" She inquired, her voice filled with surprise.

"Because it's landing on the roof of the building across the street from us!" His whole body tensed and he exchanged a look of urgency with Lori and Tony, "Gotta hang up now, Gertie. Tell Casey that we think Chuck and Sarah are here! We'll call you back in a bit."

Gertrude stared at her disconnected phone, her eyes narrowing. "Gertie?" She emitted a low guttural growl from the back of her throat, "You are in such deep doo-doo, John Casey," she muttered under her breath.

- XIV -

They crossed the street and entered the building lobby. She had a tool belt over her shoulder and he was carrying a black nylon tool bag in one hand and a small hardcase in the other. They walked up to the building receptionists desk and flashed their company I.D. badges at the female security guard/receptionist sitting at the desk watching several security feeds. "Hi," said the short bearded man as he set his tool bags on the ground and folded his arms on the counter in front of him, "We received an emergency call about a down telephone system at Tempest Industries on the twentieth floor. It seems the OC-12 voice/data carrier has gone down. We'll need access to the building D-Mark and the company PBX in the twentieth floor equipment room."

The woman looked at Morgan and Lori skeptically and consulted her computer in front of her. "I didn't receive any calls about this. The tenants are supposed to notify us first if there are any building infrastructure problems. I'm going to have to call upstairs to verify this," she stated curtly as she reached for the phone on her desk.

"Good luck with that," said Morgan with a tight-lipped smile, "they called us from a cell phone."

The receptionist gave the two of them a perplexed look as she listened to the fast-busy tone in her headset. "You're right, I can't reach their offices." Just then the phone on her desk rang and she answered it , talking briefly into her headset, before ending the call with a click of her mouse button. "That was one of their middle management people on his cell phone verifying the problem. I'll grant you access to all the equipment areas," she said, handing them a security pass card. "If you need anything else come see me or call the number on the back of the card," she added with a smile.

"Thank you, Daphne," Morgan said courteously, "hopefully this won't take very long, but sometimes SONET network problems can be a major pain in the…well, you know," he added as he grinned at her.

Anthony smugly watched the reaction of the woman from the camera in Morgan's cap being displayed on his monitor in the van as he set his cell phone down on the console in front of him, "Very smooth, Morgan, baffle them with techno-speak, I think I saw her eyes starting to glaze over. I'm sending the location of the equipment room to your tablet now."

Lori watched Morgan work with the security camera feeds for the twentieth floor office spaces and hallways. He moved very quickly as he patched their monitoring equipment into the security network node undetected. "I'm impressed, Morgan, where did you learn to work with this stuff like that?"

He briefly glanced up at Lori and smiled before he looked back to the work he was conducting and his smile turned back to a very serious look. "I learned from the best, and he just happens to also be my best friend. He's somewhere on this floor with us and I'm damned well going to find him."

Lori gave him an understanding pat on his back which he acknowledged with a brief wistful smile over his shoulder.

Morgan connected a final patch cable to his video pass-through box and clicked an icon on the tablet next to him as he picked it up and Lori moved closer to watched the security video feeds with him. Both of their expressions became very grim as they watched Chuck and Sarah being carried down a hallway with their chins on their chests, each held by two very large men with their hands under their armpits. Chuck and Sarah's feet were dragging the floor and their hands appeared to be bound behind their backs.

Seething with anger, Morgan started to rise as he reached into his tool bag and pulled an MP-5K from it and cycled the bolt.

Lori rose with him and quickly grabbed him by the arm before he could step towards the door, "Whoa, wait a second, Morgan," she hissed at him, "No heroics, do you hear me? We're going to do this the right way!"

He glared back at Lori for a second before nodding to her as his shoulders sagged and his expression softened leaving only the fire remaining in his eyes. He looked at his feet for a few seconds and dropped the SMG on top of the tool bag. Then he pulled his phone from his pocket hitting a speed dial number with determination now written on his face as he brought the phone to his ear.

"Morgan, it's been a very long time, what's the big occasion? Trouble on the homefront with Alex? You know, I'm always available for an intimate _chat _if you need to discuss it with me in person," said the sultry and playful voice of Carina Miller on the other end of the line.

* * *

**A/N** I hate cliffhangers. Good Lord, did I just do that? *Groan* Share your ire with me by writing a review.


	10. Act 9

**A/N **9/20/12** - **Wow. I can't believe it's been three months since the last update of this story. I apologize for the long wait. I'm already working on Act 10 so hopefully this will be back on track and not keep you waiting until a satisfying conclusion can be reached. Really big things are happening right now as we turn into the 'Valley of Speed' (to borrow an air racing metaphor – Google it).

Special thanks to **somedeepmystery**, **uplink2**, and **BdaddyDL **for previewing this and offering such great advice, encouragement, and tough-love beta. Plus a huge thanks to my wife for her enthusiastic proofing and patience when I disappear for hours, lost behind a keyboard. Love you, sweetie. Finally, thanks to you, dear readers, for your reviews, favorites, and follows. I really do appreciate it. It's the only currency we writers get for doing this here.

**I don't own Chuck.**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 9**

The taste of metal…a ringing in the ears, the smell of…nothing.

A pounding headache, everything dark throbbing oppressive tones of gray, and bright stabbing splashes of light. '_CAN'T move! No shoes. Bound at ankles and wrists…to a chair? Hard, cutting, tight…tie wraps?' _She allowed one eye to open just enough to assess her surroundings. '_Dark! Pitch black…no blindfold!'_ Both eyes came open a fraction. All she could see were moving masses of gray interspersed with blinding jabbing explosions of…'_It's GONE!'_

She felt it coming on and tensed as a wave of suffocating anxiety flooded over her and her breathing became ragged, shallow, and irregular. The flash hit her like a speeding truck and her world turned topsy-turvy from the impact. She inhaled with a rush as she felt she was in tumbling freefall and she sightlessly watched the bright flashes of light, and heard a low thundering sound swinging around her with a Doppler shift as it circled her picking up speed in her head, and the pressure built. And she, Sarah Walker, panicked and struggled savagely against her bonds…an almost silent scream came from her open mouth.

"Sarah?…Oh, God…not again." It was a torn plaintive plea in the midst of a storm.

'_Chuck?' _She was spinning violently as she tried to reach for his voice, '_Chuck!'_

"Oh, God. Please, Sarah if that's you please, Baby, it's Chuck. I'm here…please Sarah, calm down. I'm here," he said in a hushed calming voice filled with stress, "I'm here, Baby."

"Chuck?" For some reason the darkness now felt comforting as his voice came out of it and cut through the gray, turbulent, lightning filled cloud she was in with a slash, and then set her back down on solid ground. But something about it…"It's me, Chuck. It's Sarah," she gasped for breath, "Is it dark in here? Please tell me it's dark in here…"

"Oh, thank God. It's pitch black in here, sweetie, wherever here is. Can't see a thing. You're okay now, stay with my voice. Take slow deep breaths, clear your head, and concentrate on my voice."

Sarah concentrated on his instructions and took back control of her breathing, feeling it even out and deepen, relieved that her eyesight hadn't failed her.

"Good, you're doing good, sweetheart. Slow, even, breaths. Now go to your happy place."

Her breathing suddenly shortened and rasped as she softly chuckled and croaked, "My happy place?"

"Ah,ah,ah, my voice, Sarah. Slow, even, breaths. You know the drill. Find someplace you like to relax and go there."

She felt herself calming more and her chest stopped heaving as she followed his directions to the letter. Relief was sweeping over her, but she could feel a vortex tugging at her from the edge of her consciousness. In spite of it, "I'm in our happy place now."

"_Our _happy place?" His smile spilled into his voice. "That's good. Where is it?"

"Curled up together on the couch…doing…whatever," she said with a touch of whimsy.

"Just give me a couple of seconds and I'm there."

Sarah imagined herself and Chuck on the couch, his arms enveloping her in strong, warm, comfort. "They took it Chuck."

"I thought so," he said knowingly, keeping his answer short because the room was probably bugged. "It's not important, we'll get you another one soon."

"Chuck, it was a Rolex, and you gave it to me!" She covered, but meaning every word. '_Not important…geez. Not important, okay, it's not important…slow, deep, even, breaths'. _She tried to drive her missing governor from her mind. '_It's not important.' _

"It's all right, Sarah. It's a minor setback and we'll fix it in the morning," he said with a comforting tone as she could barely hear him in the darkness adjusting himself in his bonds and his chair. "Mmmmm, it feels so good holding you in my arms," he said, "I could stay on this couch all night."

Sarah concentrated on the image he was helping her create, even as she tried to shove back the one her own ears were conjuring. "MmmHmmm, no place I'd rather be, here, with you…don't you ever leave me, Chuck," she added, and amusingly it sounded a little like a veiled threat.

He softly laughed, "You've got me for the duration, Babe. I don't think I'm going anywhere."

Sarah quietly returned his laughter, amazed at her husband's ability to find humor in the worst of places, "Yeah, I think this couch needs new cushions, too." She sat bound to the hard chair willing herself to stay in that soft comfortable place with her husband, and wriggled over in her minds eye to face him, thoroughly entwined with him on the couch. "Chuck?"

"Yes, Sarah?"

"I'm kissing you through a smile right now."

- II -

She walked out of the door of the hotel, luggage in hand, looking for the sign; spotting it almost immediately in the hand of the limo driver parked next to the curb. "I'm Belle Boyd," she said, and the driver looked at her appraisingly as he stepped forward to take her bags before opening the limousine door for her.

"Miss Boyd," he replied, as he held the door for her, "Please make yourself comfortable, I'll have you at the airport in just a few minutes," the Mexican driver said in flawless english, "I understand your plane has just arrived and is waiting for you on the ramp."

"Thank you," she replied nervously as she slid into the comfortable leather seats and let out a deep shuddering breath. As the door closed she came to the realization that she was now 'all in' and completely committed to the decision she had made days ago. Looking around the interior of the coach as it pulled away from the curb her eyes fell onto several crystal decanters and glasses sitting in a small bar service between the club seating. Removing a bottle of amber liquid and a glass she looked briefly at the ice bucket before pouring herself three fingers neat and downing it quickly before filling the glass once more and setting the bottle back into its space with a shaky hand. The burn of the liquid as she swallowed it went completely unnoticed. She took another drink and gripped the crystal tumbler with both hands and stared unseeing out the window thinking about the circumstances and events that had led up to this moment.

It had all started with a simple email. Well, there really wasn't anything simple about the way she had sent it, being as she had hacked the web portal servers to route the message through several other servers bouncing it halfway around the world and back before it finally ended up in the inbox of the recipient. And then to her surprise she had a reply the very same day also routed in a very convoluted way to her own mailbox with very simple instructions. First, to send the name of the hotel where she was staying; and second, to be out in front of the hotel at a specific time for transport, along with the name the driver would be expecting. It appeared that even with the precautions she had taken they knew almost exactly where she was and the revelation unnerved her. If they so easily figured that out couldn't her former employers do the same? It had led to an almost endless round of second-guessing and worry up until she had stepped into the limousine. Now, the worry was approaching a panic attack as she wondered if this ride might take her to redemption or destruction.

The car drove through a security gate and a small sharply drawn breath of relief passed her lips as the Gulfstream IV come into view, with the Carmichael Industries logo clearly visible on the tail. The limousine pulled up to the front of the plane and a man and a woman in flight crew suits came down the stairs to greet her as the driver opened the door for her. The man took her luggage from the limo driver and stepped quickly up into the aircraft as the woman approached her with a very purposeful look on her face.

"Ms. Boyd, I'm Greta Hughes, your pilot for this trip. If you'll please step aboard, we're in a bit of a hurry and our departure clearance window is a little tight. Please relax and make yourself at home and buckle up for an immediate takeoff, I'll try to make the flight as smooth as possible."

She swallowed hard and nodded back to the woman, walking hastily up the stairs into the plane, trying to calm herself with every step. She had never been in an aircraft like this and her gaze moved around the passenger cabin, taking in the tasteful and modern appointments as she entered. As she walked down the aisle toward the rows of executive club seating she saw a flash of auburn hair above the top of one of the seats with its back to her. She walked cautiously toward the seat, and her jaw dropped as she stepped around and looked at the person sitting there.

"Carina!" She gasped as she looked into the intense but unreadable aquamarine gaze of the woman in front of her.

"Hello, Jules, fancy meeting you here," Carina said, as she casually waved to the seat across from her, "Have a seat. We need to have a chat."

- III -

Edgar Sloan rose from his seat behind his desk as Simon McKay entered his office, "McKay, I ought to have you drawn and quartered for what you did yesterday. Do you know how many men we lost and how badly you compromised us when you pulled this little stunt?!"

McKay regarded him with a cold smile as he strode to the desk, "Relax Edgar, I understand you're upset, and I'm not very pleased myself. If things had gone as planned Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael and most of the Intersect research team would be trussed up in a G5 on their way to Europe right now. I'm as mad about how this went down as you are. Even with the element of surprise we had, operational security was lost somewhere, and it wasn't my team in Burbank."

"Bullshit, McKay. Don't try to throw this back in my face. Tell me what was so important that losing some of my best agents, including Richard Watson, made it worth it?"

McKay pointed to the computer on Sloan's desk, "Fine, Edgar, I'll show you. May I?"

Sloan stepped aside with an exasperated look on his face, "Go ahead, and it better be good."

Simon walked around the desk and opened an application on the computer then typed a string of figures into a search box. Almost immediately, a window opened showing a man and a woman bound to metal chairs that were attached to the floor. The video image was showing in false color with annotations in the top corner indicating that it was shot in infrared light. As the two men watched, the woman started to shake violently while gasping for breath; her eyes wide open in terror. She looked like she was having some sort of seizure. The man with her was extremely agitated and futilely trying to get her attention to calm her down.

Sloan turned to McKay with a morbid look of curiosity on his face. "What the hell just happened there?"

McKay tapped a couple of keys on the keyboard and another clip played, but this time the man in the video was finally able to get the woman's attention and calm her down. Both men listened with interest to the conversation between the two captives. McKay looked back to Sloan evenly and said, "Those are the Carmichaels, also known as Mr. and Mrs. Chuck Bartowski. Mrs. Bartowski is also a human Intersect."

"What? Bullshit," said Sloan, incredulously, "Quinn said he had a working one, but I didn't believe it. Do you know how many test subjects we lost trying to make a human Intersect at Meadow Branch and Black Rock? The technology isn't ready for prime time. It fries the human brain, Quinn said so much himself."

"Well, after looking at this I'm inclined to agree with you," answered Sloan with a smirk. "But I'm surprised at you Edgar. I took you to be a man with a larger vision."

"Screw you, Simon. You know our goal is the same one that Ted Roark had, but we're still a ways away from realizing it." He looked back to the video, studying Sarah Bartowski for a few seconds, "What makes you think this woman is actually an Intersect? And if she is what do you propose we do with her?"

"I suspect that she downloaded the Ring Intersect. Why she did it, I don't know. Apparently Quinn found out about it somehow. He tried to program her as an assassin, but the Ring Intersect was unstable and the mission failed. As far as what to do with her? Study her. Experiment on her…and her husband. Maybe even put the two of them to good use. Using them, I think we can push your timeline for a successful project forward by several months."

Sloan turned to Simon McKay with a sudden look of realization on his face, "The video we took from Sanders; she was the one Quinn was torturing."

"I suppose you could call it that. But what he was trying to do was brainwash and program her using the Intersect. And that opens up a whole new set of possibilities to us for its use." McKay reached into his pocket and pulled out a thumbdrive placing it on Edgar's desk. "I suggest you watch this. Watson gave it to me before we raided Castle. The rest of the videos were at the JPL annex and he procured them a couple of days ago."

Sloan picked up the drive and plugged it into the dock on his monitor stand. As he watched it, even he couldn't see how it could be described as anything but torture.

In an empty office on the twenty-first floor of the Century East building, John Casey sat at a table behind a snipers screen. He examined the windows of the twentieth floor of the building across the street from him one by one. As he slowly panned the riflescope of the Barrett MRAD sniper rifle across the windows he listened for voices on his headset with a laser listening device mounted on the side picatinny rail on the forearm of the rifle. Most of the offices on the floor appeared to be vacant; some of them had the blinds on the windows drawn. Then he heard a fragment of a voice as the laser tracked across one of the windows, picking up the vibrations of a conversation on the glass originating from inside the room. He reached up and turned the magnification ring on the Nightforce Optics riflescope, zooming in on the window in question. He saw, then heard, two men talking as they watched a computer monitor on the desk. At first his eyes went wide as he listened to the conversation. Then he reached up and rotated the magnification all the way up to 42X and looked at the monitor on the desk. The monitor was partially blocked by one of the men and at an oblique angle but what he saw on it made his blood run cold as he watched and listened to the two men talk. His eyes then narrowed to not much more than dark slits on his face.

"Chuck me…"

It was all he could do to keep himself from sending the .338 Lapua armor piercing rounds their way right then and there.

- IV -

Grim faces surrounded the conference table. Nikki Lawson sat at the head of it with her foot up on one of the extra chairs, a pair of crutches leaning against the table. Everyone was looking at a floor plan of the Tempest Industries offices on a monitor embedded in the center of the tabletop and listening to the voice of John Casey over the Polycom conference phone as he described what he'd seen and heard only minutes before in the building across the street from him. He had sent Gertrude to the roof with Silent Suzy to act as overwatch. Lori Compton was on the roof providing cover and spotting for Gertrude, and Tony Carmichael was in the van monitoring the security camera taps, trying to isolate the feed to the room Casey had described seeing on the monitor through his riflescope. Morgan and Alex had gone to the airport to pick up Carina, the new analyst (no one really knew what else to call her at the moment), and Zondra Rizzo - who had flown in from Paraguay after dropping a mission mid-stream, to join them.

"Do we have _any_ idea where Chuck and Sarah are in that building, Casey?" asked Nikki as she looked at the building layout in front of her.

"Not yet," the voice growled over the speakerphone, "but there are several security feeds on that floor we haven't been able to access yet. We can probably narrow it down to one of those."

"I'm not having much luck with that," interjected Anthony, " I think we're going to need an analyst here on site. This isn't exactly one of my fortes."

Nikki looked around the table as all the analysts sitting around it raised their hands to volunteer. "Morgan, where are you now?"

"Just leaving LAX, Nikki. Why?"

"Because you have an analyst with you and you're the closest to Century City right now." Nikki held her hand up when she received several scowls from the analysts around the conference table. "What have we learned about Julie Peterson? Do you think she can be trusted?"

"Well, Carina says she worked with Jules on several DEA ops a while back that all ended up being very successful. And she appears to be pretty upset about what's happened. I think it's worth a shot."

"Then get to Century City as soon as possible. I'll be headed that way with Jose as soon as we're done here."

"We all better move damn quick," Casey's voice, growled again, "I don't think we have much time."

"Then we're done here," said Nikki, flatly, "We're on the way John. Do what you can there until we can assemble a team on site."

A single, angry grunt came over the speaker.

Nikki Lawson stood with a grimace and hit the button to end the call. She grabbed her crutches and started to hobble towards the door before throwing one of them to the floor with disgust and pacing to the door supporting her weight on the remaining crutch. "Come on, Jose, we don't have a second to lose," she said through gritted teeth.

In the Chevrolet Tahoe, racing down the 405 with the emergency vehicle running lights on, Morgan Grimes keyed his vox circuit to his earbud, "Anthony, have tactical gear ready for the C.A.T.'s when we arrive so we can move right away if we have to."

"On it, Morgan."

Morgan looked quickly at the four women with him in the truck with a little bit of trepidation, "I hope you ladies don't mind me calling you that."

"Not at all, Morgan," Carina answered, looking at him with a mirthful smirk. She then turned to Alex, "How do you feel about being a CAT?"

"I don't even know what a CAT _is_," Alex responded, with a wary gaze.

"Well, you _are_ one now," said Carina, exchanging a grin with Zondra.

Morgan stared straight ahead not wanting to think about the implications of that statement, especially when he considered how Casey would respond to it. If the circumstances were different he would have taken delight in the thought and the fulfillment of a fantasy as well as the opportunity to speed down the freeway at over a hundred miles per hour. But all he was feeling now was a sense of foreboding dread.

- V -

Anthony Carmichael tapped away on the keyboard in the surveillance van still trying in vain to isolate the blocked security feeds. As he pulled a hand across his face in frustration the door to the van slid open and a short attractive blonde haired woman stepped in with Morgan Grimes.

"Tony, this is Julie Peterson. She's here to help find Chuck and Sarah. Why don't you step aside and let her give it a try."

"By all means," Anthony replied, with an exasperated look on his face as he stepped from the seat at the console, "I hope you can make some headway with this Miss Peterson, I was getting nowhere with it."

Julie slipped into the seat wordlessly as Tony made room, and immediately started to rapidly type on the keyboard and watch the screens change in front of her while the two men looked on. After a moment of rapid keyboarding she said, without looking up from her work, "They've firewalled these feeds from the rest of the system, but I think I can bypass them in a few minutes. As soon as I have something I'll shout."

"I'll stay here with her Morgan, Casey has your gear upstairs." Tony then gave him a warning look. "Be careful around Casey, he's not a happy camper."

Morgan paused as he started to open the door, "I don't think any of us are right now, but thanks. I learned to be perpetually careful around Casey a long, long, time ago." And he exited with a wry smile.

"What's the status, John?" Morgan asked as they walked into the vacant office where Casey was set up.

"Nothing's changed," came the gruff answer. Casey never looked up from his task. "No sign of Chuck and Sarah. Haven't heard a sound either. You better get your team ready; I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Right. Ladies, there's your gear," Morgan said pointing to several duffle bags on the ground. He reached into one and passed earbuds around to his team before donning a vest and holstering two tranq guns.

The women all inserted the earpieces and then started to strip out of their clothes to change into tactical BDU's and vests. Morgan was doing his best not to stare and quickly turned around with an uncomfortable look on his face as Alex caught him looking at all of them. Carina, standing there in her BDU pants and a bra, caught his eye as he turned and gave him a wry smile, which she then exchanged with Alex. Alex responded with a roll of her eyes.

Casey finally looked up from his riflescope and turned around, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked, looking at his daughter.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to help."

"The hell you are. Grimes, if you had anything to do with this-"

"Leave him alone, Dad, he had nothing to do with it. There is no way I'm not going to help. Chuck and Sarah are my friends too," Alex defiantly answered as she pulled on her boots.

"Relax, Casey," said Carina brusquely, "If you want to blame anyone, blame me. I asked her to be a CAT for this one. She'll be fine. I'm not going to let her get into a firefight."

Casey's grinding teeth could be heard across the room, "So help me, Miller, if _anything _happens to her-"

"Nice positive attitude, John. We need all the help we can get, so deal with it," Carina retorted with a bit of venom.

"HMNG! Get you asses ready and get downstairs." Casey returned his attention to his riflescope with a glowering look on his face. He wasn't going to show it to anyone, but he was secretly proud of his daughter for making the decision to do this.

"Casey," Tony interrupted, "we have a video feed. I'm patching it through to your computer now."

Casey looked at the notebook monitor next to him and growled, "That's them. Do you have any audio?" He turned briefly to see four pairs of eyes staring at the screen with emotions written in them ranging from shock and concern to cold-blooded murderous rage. He pointed to the door, "Get going ladies, you know what we need to do."

The CAT's and Morgan all nodded solemnly and headed for the door.

"Still working on audio, Casey. Give us another minute for that. Julie says she thinks this is an outer room on the floor plan. It should have a window."

"Could it be on the other side of the building? I've seen no indication it's on this side."

"Stand by." After a short pause, "No, it's on this side of the building according to the plans."

"Hnmg, Give me a minute. Can you point me to a specific window?"

"It should be about five rooms over from the office you were watching…to your left."

Casey panned the rifle left, counting the windows, but didn't see or hear anything from the window they were directing him to. Then he looked closer. The window looked opaque, like it had been painted over. And then he thought he heard it, softly at first, but it was there; the soft sound of someone breathing laboriously. "I think I may have found something, stand by." He reached up and removed the riflescope then exchanged it for a thermal imaging scope from the hard case at his feet. The thermal imager took several seconds to power up as he waited impatiently for an image to appear in the eyepiece. And there they were visible in glowing white through the 'window', both of them bound to chairs. Casey's teeth clenched as he watched a door open at the back of the room and the overhead lights came on causing Chuck and Sarah to visibly react to the light as they ducked their heads.

"Casey, four men just entered-"

"I see them," he said, cutting Anthony off, "Double-time it Grimes, time just ran out on us!"

"Roger, Casey, we're crossing under the street in the access tunnel right now," replied Morgan with worry in his voice. "We need the security feeds disabled to the basement and elevators."

"It's done," responded the new girl from the van after a flourish of her hands on the keyboard.

"Gertrude, alert your team. Be ready to send them in when I give the word."

"Roger that, Johnny, just say the word, the chopper is standing by five miles out," said Gertrude Verbanski, as she and Lori Compton picked and prioritized their targets on the opposite roof.

Casey watched and listened as the four men approached Chuck and Sarah in the center of the room.

- VI -

Chuck and Sarah reacted painfully to the sudden light after so many hours of complete darkness and they blinked at the glaring brightness that assaulted their eyes as they watched four men approach from a doorway on their left. Both of them focused their attention on three of the men in particular, two of whom they both immediately recognized as Simon McKay and Allen Preston. Then Sarah winced and shook violently as she flashed on Edgar Sloan's file. It only made things worse for her when the file she saw in her mind yanked a memory from her past and she gasped as she recognized Sloan - or 'Winterborne' as he was known to Fulcrum - from a very tense moment years ago in an Opera House.

Chuck was able to hide the small refresh flash he experienced when he looked at Sloan, Winterborne and the two other thugs that were with them. All of these men were very bad news, and all of them had their attention focused on Sarah when they saw how she reacted to them. His heart almost burst as he watched his wife convulse, "Sarah!" he exclaimed as one of the men stepped up to him and back-fisted him across the face.

"Shut up, you geek," shouted the man at Chuck, "You'll speak when you're spoken to!"

The assault on her husband ripped Sarah back from her flash and she glared at the man through bright flashing stars with murder in her eyes. _IT'S NERD, YOU BASTARD! _Then her stare turned to Simon as he chuckled.

"Well, Agent Walker, I see you still have the Intersect and you're still flashing," said McKay with amusement.

"Leave her alone! Or so help me, I'll kill every one of you with my bare hands!" The Fulcrum agent struck Chuck again in the face.

"Chuck!" Sarah jerked at her bonds and shot daggers with her eyes at all the men around her.

"So that was a, what did you call it, a flash?" asked Sloan looking at McKay with curiosity.

"Yes, at least that's what this one named it when he had the Intersect," McKay said, pointing at Chuck.

"Wait a minute. You're telling me this man had the Intersect too?"

"Oh, did I fail to mention that?" asked McKay with a smirk, "Yes, Edgar, at one time he was the only human Intersect."

"But he doesn't have it now? What else have you not told me, McKay?"

"You pretty much know all of it now. Agent Walker was originally one of his bodyguards. That's why it was imperative that we capture both of them. Mr. Bartowski is probably our best test candidate for study and programming. I'm beginning to think his wife here may be a lost cause, but she is still useful to us."

Chuck and Sarah exchanged a brief look of shock.

"That's right, Mr. Bartowski, you're going to do exactly as I say or I'm going to fry your wife's brain. I might even use her to kill some people very important to you." McKay removed a leather bound case, which both Chuck and Sarah recognized, from his suit coat pocket and unzipped it. He leafed through its contents and pulled out a flashcard. Chuck instinctively averted his gaze hoping it wasn't noticed but McKay and Sloan's attention was on Sarah as McKay held the card up and Sarah screamed.

Looking away from them at the ground Chuck shouted, "STOP IT!" He hoped his averted gaze would be interpreted as not wanting to see Sarah suffer.

McKay lowered the card and held it to his side as he watched Sarah's head swing around in agony, and he then turned to Chuck and gave him a look of contempt. "I'm going to enjoy turning you into an assassin so damn much, Mr. Bartowski. That is, after you give us an army of Intersects." He then held up his cell phone in his other hand. "All you have to do is contact your sister and Dr. Depak and tell them to surrender themselves to us. Then maybe I'll think about not turning you wife's brain into goo."

Chuck glared at McKay, his mind racing a thousand mile per hour wondering what to do. All he could do at the moment was stare at him in defiance with the agonizing realization where that defiance would lead.

McKay then motioned to one of the two thugs and the man walked around, seized Sarah by her hair and pried her eyes open with his fingertips.

"Noooooo!" Chuck couldn't look away as Simon brought the card up and Sarah once again screamed. The sight of the card made him gasp and Simon McKay and Edgar Sloan looked at him with surprise.

As he tried to blink the flash away he heard a loud pop as a .338 caliber armor piercing bullet punched through the 'wall' to his right and contacted Simon McKay's skull at the base of his jaw below his ear. The flashcard fell to the ground and shattered as McKay's body toppled over.

Casey swiftly recovered from the recoil, smoothly cycling the bolt on the MRAD rifle with his thumb and forefinger in the blink of an eye. Then he loosed another round at the man holding Sarah, striking him center of mass, the heavy high velocity bullet flinging him halfway across the room. Sloan and Allen Preston dove to the floor and made for the doorway, as another round pierced the window and struck one of the chair legs where the tie wrap was binding Chuck's right leg. Finally realizing what was happening, Chuck flashed as another round punched into the chair where his right hand was bound. Suddenly free, he twisted around, grabbing the tie wrap binding his left hand and twisted and yanked both arms with a loud grunt, cutting his left wrist in the process but cleanly snapping the bonds. He rose to his feet to help Sarah but toppled forward, caught by the tie wrap holding his left leg before it finally twisted and snapped, and he staggered to his knees next to Sarah.

"GO, GO, GO!" Yelled Casey on the radio as he panned the rifle across the room and fired another round at the wall next to the doorway. Sloan and Preston ducked as the bullet punched through the wall between them and they both quickly scrambled down the hallway.

Preston looked at his boss as they retreated and Edgar gave him a curt nod. He brought a radio to his mouth and gave the command to evacuate to the backup facility as they made their way down the hallway to the lab holding the Intersect Technology that had been recovered from Castle.

On the roof of the East tower, Gertrude sent a round from Silent Suzy into one of the Fulcrum agents guarding the helicopter. "Hit," exclaimed Lori Compton, "three right."

Gertrude swung the rifle three meters right and sent another one, "Hit, five right, three up…hit..." A Verbanski Corp helicopter swung into view with several men in the doors ready to Fast Rope to the roof as Gertrude continued to fire on the enemy agents below them.

Morgan and Alex exited the elevator in the building's main lobby and sprinted across the room towards the security desk. As they rounded the corner the woman behind the desk was rising from her chair, her handgun just beginning to clear leather. Morgan already had his tranq pistol up and skidded wide eyed across the floor on one knee firing several darts rapid fire toward the guard. As the guard started to bring the gun to bear her arm went slack and she toppled to the terrazzo floor with a bony thump, her Glock pistol clattering across the floor like a plastic toy. Alex took a seat at the security desk so she could give directions to Carina and Zondra as the two CAT squad members made their way to the twentieth floor. "We've secured the lobby," she said into her watch transceiver. She watched Morgan starting to drag away the body of the security guard and caught his eye, "Nice shooting, Tex," she added with a grin as Morgan beamed back at her with his trademark thumbs up.

Back up on the twentieth floor, Chuck looked frantically at his wife, his hands in momentary confusion alternating between the bonds on her wrists and her face as he looked into her glassy eyes. "Sarah, Sarah! Oh, my God," his forehead fell to hers as he fought back the tears threatening to take over.

"Chuck," came her very weak voice, "Chuck…my…watch…pocket. My watch pocket, Chuck."

"Huh?" He looked again into her glazed eyes, and he remembered. He immediately started to fumble with his hands into the watch pocket of her jeans hoping they had missed it. He couldn't get his big hand into the pocket easily so he ran his other hand down behind her jeans waistband to help him feel for it.

"Don't…get…fresh with me mister," she weakly quipped as he fumbled for the object.

It was there! He quickly pulled it from her pocket with a grin as he looked at her thin smile. He pinched the emergency governor hard between his thumb and forefinger before he peeled the backing from it and pressed it to the skin behind her left ear.

Sarah let out a long shuddering sigh of relief and her head came up as she looked a little more lucidly into his eyes. "Check one of them for a knife," she said softly, jerking her head toward the two bodies on the floor.

Chuck scrambled over to the body of the dead henchman and patted his pockets down before jumping back to his feet with a Spyderco folding knife that he quickly flipped open to cut Sarah's bonds. As he cut the last tie wrap around her ankle, Sarah rose quickly from the chair and clasped her arms around his neck, burying her head in his chest under his chin. They held each other tight for a moment, only to be snapped back to reality by the sound of suppressed gunfire somewhere outside the room. After looking at each other for a second, they moved toward the door but Sarah stumbled as they stepped toward it.

"Sarah, are you okay?"

"I don't know…feel woozy…terrible headache."

"We've got to get you out of here. C'mon, let me help you." Chuck slipped his arm around her and moved out into the hallway after peeking around the doorframe to make sure it was clear. They heard footsteps running around the corner up ahead and Chuck quickly opened the door to another office and backed into it as the footsteps came closer. He turned to check the room they entered and thankfully it was empty. His eyes fell onto a map on the wall and he flashed. _The Czech Republic? _He peeked back into the hallway. It looked clear so he took Sarah around her shoulders again and moved down the hall, only to almost walk into two very large men as they rounded a corner. Forced to drop Sarah, he snap kicked one of the men in the groin and stepped sideways to the man's partner delivering a two knuckle punch into a pressure point on the side of his neck. As the blow landed he grabbed the enemy agents wrist with his other hand, locking the stunned agent's arm, and flung the large man into the wall headfirst.

Sarah had fallen onto one knee and was rising to her feet again when the Fulcrum thug Chuck had kicked grabbed her arm above her left wrist and tried to yank her back. But she grabbed his wrist right back and yanked down putting her weight into the motion as she turned into him and her right palm came up striking him in the chin, stunning him. Her left arm then wrapped around his arm under his armpit as she trapped his wrist under her own armpit, and then stepped back and settled her stance, pulling the large man painfully back by his bent back and locked arm. Sarah then delivered a snap kick to the side of his knee and flung him to the ground by his barred arm as his knee collapsed, finally finishing him off with a hammer blow to his nose the instant his head hit the floor with a crack; and just like that her fight was over. Fortunately she didn't flash, and she looked up just in time to see Chuck deliver a final blow to the other enemy agent. The fierceness of the blow startled her. She had no idea Chuck had that in him, and as she stared at him she collapsed to the floor again on her knees.

Chuck rushed to her side and picked her up again, "Hang on, sweetie, we're going to get you out of here. We're going to fix this once and for all," he exclaimed as he started to half carry her down the hallway.

"So tired, Chuck. My head hurts so bad…"

- VII -

Carina and Zondra rounded a corner in the hallway after exiting the elevator and approached the glass wall partitioned entrance to the offices of Tempest Industries. As they quickly but cautiously moved up to it, the glass wall erupted into flying glass and bullet holes, finally falling to the floor in a shower of a thousand pieces of safety glass. Carina sprinted and rolled across the opening to come up on the other side. She dropped to one knee throwing a hand signal to Zondra and the two of them rounded the corners in unison and fired on two of the enemy agents with their short-barreled M4's mounted with integral suppressors. The Kevlar body armor the enemy agents were wearing was no match for the high velocity 5.56mm bullets, and they punched through the vests like they were made of paper, dropping both of the men in their tracks.

"Remind me to thank your bearded gnome for giving us the right tools for the job," exclaimed Zondra from across the open entrance with a grin.

Carina rolled her eyes at her friend, "His name is Morgan, and I'll be sure to remind you!" Then she stood and quickly fired around the corner again dropping another Fulcrum agent, only to quickly lower her gun when she saw Chuck carrying Sarah across a hallway in the background. She pulled abruptly back and looked at Zondra mouthing "Chuck and Sarah" with a wide-eyed jerk of her head.

Zondra mouthed back, "Where?" and Carina emphatically motioned with her hand toward the back of the room.

They both then turned the corners and laid down full auto covering fire at the remaining Fulcrum agents as they saw Chuck and Sarah move toward a connecting hallway at the rear corner of the room.

_So the CAT's are here._ Chuck allowed himself to smile at that. Maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel after all. He moved down the hallway toward a stairwell entry only to spot more men in black tactical garb spilling from the doorway. _Shit! That's what I get for thinking happy thoughts. _He opened a door and backed into a private office behind him, looking around as he went in. There was a private entrance at the back of it and he made his way to the door to peek out into the hallway. He saw Carina and Zondra off to his left and an elevator straight to his front. Not wasting a second he hoisted Sarah into a fireman's carry and headed for the elevator.

Zondra looked past Carina, and upon seeing Chuck carrying Sarah, pointed vigorously down the hallway. Carina looked just in time to see Chuck carrying Sarah into the elevator and the door closing. "Morgan, Chuck and Sarah are on an elevator headed your way! Sarah looks like she's injured!"

"Roger that Carina, we'll be waiting for them!" Morgan ran toward the bank of elevators and watched as two of them indicated their cars were descending toward the lobby. _Damn, which one? _Alex ran up to his side and they anxiously waited for both of the doors to open. The door on the left chimed and Chuck stepped out of it carrying Sarah over his shoulder. They all locked eyes for a second as time froze and it was then put back into slow motion by the slow ringing of the other elevator door as it opened. Alex McHugh spun around and saw a submachine gun barrel coming out of the door and reached for it, yanking it with all her might causing the sling to snap hard against the enemy agent's neck, jerking him forward. As he came forward she slammed the butt of the weapon into his face and the man went down hard on the elevator floor as Morgan quickly drew a tranq pistol and shot him in the neck.

Both Chuck and Morgan looked at Alex with astonishment before Chuck came back to his senses and started to move toward the front entrance of the building.

"Where are you going, Chuck?" asked his short bearded friend as Chuck headed for the large glass doors carrying Sarah.

"I've got to get Sarah some help, Morgan! I think Ellie may be the only one who can help her now!" Chuck carried Sarah through the door and out onto the street looking around for some kind of transportation, finally spotting the spy van across the street.

No sooner had he started to step toward the curb when a Thunder Gray Cadillac CTS screeched to a halt in front of him and Nikki Lawson opened the driver's door standing up to yell at him, "Get in!"

Chuck scrambled to the back door of the car and opened it to place Sarah in the back seat as Jose Espinoza tried to help him. He was getting into the rear seat with Sarah when John Casey dashed around the car and jerked Jose from the front seat as he was getting back in. "Out of the car, numbnuts, I'm calling shotgun," he brusquely exclaimed as he climbed into the passenger seat. Nikki shot Casey a wry smile as he slammed the door and pounded the dash. "GO!" She then dropped the clutch and they roared away down the street leaving Morgan, Alex, and Jose standing on the sidewalk.

"That woman drives like a maniac," muttered, Jose, his face bleached white from the ride.

"Where are we going?" asked Chuck as they rocketed down the street and Nikki Lawson speed shifted into another gear.

"Anywhere but here!" responded Nikki looking over her shoulder briefly at him with a worried expression on her face as she looked at Sarah.

"Take us to Castle! We have to get help from Ellie and Manoosh!"

"Are you sure, Chuck? Castle has been compromised," said Casey glaring at him skeptically.

"We have to, Casey! Ellie and Manoosh are the only ones who can help Sarah! Not even the governor is helping now!"

"Calm down, Bartowski, we need you to keep a clear head," exclaimed Casey, "We'll get you there." Casey then pulled out his cell phone and punched Ellie's speed dial number.

Casey looked over at Nikki and they both shared a look of concern as Nikki pulled onto the freeway and floored it. Chuck sat in the back seat holding his wife to him, rocking her in his arms. He closed his eyes when he looked forward to see the speedometer approaching 150 miles per hour.

- VIII -

"Chuck!" Ellie exclaimed as she watched them descend the stairs from Cobra Holdings into Castle, "Thank God you're all right."

Chuck was following Casey as the big man carried Sarah down the stairs in his arms. Nikki was limping along bringing up the rear.

Ellie took a quick look at Sarah's eyes and checked her pulse when they reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to Chuck, giving him a brief bone-crushing hug before turning back to Casey. "Manoosh is waiting for Sarah in the lab, let's get her down there, stat." Ellie's face was clouded with worry as she looked at Sarah.

As they hurried down the bullet-pockmarked and blood stained corridor to the download lab Ellie turned to Chuck, "What happened, little brother?"

"Sarah was exposed to the flashcards again, Ellie. That sicko, Simon McKay tried to use her to coerce me into being a tool for his insane designs."

"He won't ever be doing that again, Chuck," said Casey with cold resolve as he held his partner in his arms, striding down the hallway.

Ellie looked at Casey wondering what exactly that meant when her brother spoke up again. "Not only did he use the flashcards on her, but they took away her governor for I don't know how long, and she flashed horribly a couple of times while we were held captive. I'm really worried, Ellie, I've never seen her this bad. Not even the governor is working now. What are we going to do?"

"The only thing we _can_ do now, Chuck," said Ellie holding his arm and leaning into him as they walked, "We're going to have to overwrite her Intersect with the Iv4 program."

Chuck stopped and gripped his sister's hand on his arm looking at her with alarm in his eyes, "Are we ready for that?"

"Probably as ready as we're ever going to be, little brother, Manoosh finished up the final scripting only about an hour ago. C'mon we need to hurry,' she said as she tugged him down the hall after Casey who had never slowed down.

Chuck tried to absorb all of that as they hurried to the lab and Dr. Depak passed them through both the security doors without locking down the mantrap. Manoosh rushed to Sarah and opened her eyes with his hand to check her pupils before also checking her pulse at her neck. He handed Ellie a wrist style blood pressure monitor, which she immediately placed on Sarah's wrist to check her blood pressure. Ellie and Manoosh exchanged a look as the numbers flashed on the unit. "Is Sarah wearing a governor, Chuck?" Manoosh asked.

"Yes, she's wearing the emergency one you gave her behind her left ear. It doesn't appear to be helping anymore."

"Well, we're going to have to remove it for the Iv4 download," Manoosh replied as he reached behind Sarah's ear and pulled the governor away. Sarah's breath hitched and her breathing immediately became sharp and shallow. "Well it appears it _was _helping her somewhat," Manoosh exclaimed, " We're going to have to move fast. Take her into the download room Casey."

"No, hand her over to me, I'll take care of her. I want to be with her," said Chuck, as he reached to Casey for his wife.

"You can't both be in the download room at the same time Chuck," said Ellie holding his arm.

"Yes, I can, and I will. Don't try to stop me, Ellie. I'll hold her eyes open for her while she receives the download, and I'll keep my eyes closed while it's taking place. Afterwards, you can update my Intersect. It will save time and Sarah won't be alone if something goes wrong. I'm not leaving her alone, Ellie, period."

Chuck's sister looked carefully at him apparently attempting to assess his resolve, "All right, Chuck, we'll do it your way. The process shouldn't take long, but let John carry her in. I'll let you know when you can open your eyes for your update."

Casey carried Sarah into the chamber and Chuck took a seat in the padded recliner chair in the middle, motioning for John to place Sarah in his lap. Chuck held his wife reclined back in his arms and Manoosh tilted the chair back before the rest of them left the chamber and the electronic doors closed.

"This is going to take about ten minutes, Chuck," Ellie explained as Dr. Depak typed rapidly on a keyboard, "Wait for our word before opening your eyes."

Chuck nodded back to her and gulped, "I'm ready."

"Okay. Open Sarah's eyes and close yours," exclaimed his sister.

Chuck held his left arm around Sarah's head and opened her eyes with his fingertips, causing her to moan. "It's okay, Baby. Hang on, Sarah, everything is going to be okay." He scrunched his own eyes tightly shut.

"Stand by, Chuck," said Manoosh, "download beginning in three, two, one…"

There was a low hum that resonated around the room and a thump that he could feel through the chair followed by a whirring sound that changed rapidly in pitch and light playing across his closed eyelids. It took all his will power to keep from opening his eyes as he felt Sarah twitching in his arms. And for one of the few times in his life he prayed as he held her. After what felt like hours, but what had only been the ten minutes Ellie described, the sound and light stopped with a low thunk, and Sarah abruptly went limp.

"We're done Chuck. Stand by for your update," said Ellie over the intercom. "Okay, place your hands over Sarah's eyes and open yours. Update starting in three, two, one…"

The same low hum started, followed by the resonating sound and the thump, and his eyes were seized by the appearance of multiple three dimensional geometric shapes that were projected in space around him. He couldn't move a muscle as the shapes flashed from one form to another in front of him holding him paralyzed for what felt like an eternity. He couldn't even think. And then it all stopped with a thunk, and he felt himself slipping into a state of relaxation he had never felt before as everything went black.

* * *

**A/N **– And thus begins a new adventure. Chuck and Sarah have just stepped squarely into the realm of comic books. How fitting that is for a guy like Chuck.

Get ready for some serious (as in get the insulin ready) Charah in the next act of Lost Years.


	11. Act 10

**A/N **10/28/12 - Well, here we are at Act 10, finally. Get out your insulin syrettes because you may need them.

Thanks to my betas, my gorgeous ninja accountant wife, **somedeepmystery**, and **BDaddyDL** for once again (attempting) to keep me in line and offering such good advice, even though I may not have listened to all of it.

**I don't own Chuck**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 10**

Something felt different. It might have been the bed. The mattress felt softer, more supportive. He felt rested. Lighter. Almost like he was laying on air. But he knew he'd been sleeping a while. He wondered how long. The room was softly lit, the light spilling through two multi-paned windows with gauze curtains and soft colored drapes. He stared up at a white coved ceiling. This place was familiar but also new to him. He knew he'd been here before.

Then he heard the sounds. A television set? What was that soft beeping sound? And he heard the gentle sound of someone's regular breathing. He turned his head to his left and saw the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on, and it was so joyously familiar. She looked like an angel lying there by him; right where he knew she always belonged. Even with the electrodes circling her head she looked calm and at peace. There was a small pendant hanging around her neck that he couldn't recall ever seeing before. He watched her eyes dance under her eyelids. She must be dreaming, and he wondered what it might be about.

Chuck pushed himself up onto his elbow and watched her. When he rose up he felt something slide across his chest and looking down under his Browncoat t-shirt he discovered he was wearing a pendant around his neck just like hers. There was an I.V. stand next to the bed and several pieces of monitoring equipment, mostly the standard hospital fare, but there was also a portable EEG with a graphic display. He nerded out on the technology as he studied it and watched the displays change. When he moved closer to her and placed a soft kiss on her lips and stroked her blonde hair and cheek the soft beeping increased its pace and the EEG's graphic display subtly changed. It made him smile knowing he could affect her that way when she wasn't even awake. He felt a strange connection when he touched her.

He gave Sarah, the love of his life, another gentle kiss and rolled carefully out of bed testing his balance as he swung his feet to the hardwood floor. And he finally realized where he was. There was a pair of sweatpants draped across the arm of a chair and he picked them up, letting them fall from his waist to the ground. They were certainly the right length so he pulled them on and walked into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. As he finished toweling his face off he looked up in the mirror and saw his sister leaning against the doorframe with a smile on her face. His own perplexed expression morphed into a smile in the mirror and he turned to her, giving her a warm silent hug. Ellie kissed his cheek and stepped back slightly to look him in the eyes, raising a finger to her lips as she took his arm and led him from the room. They walked quietly down the stairs into the living room where John Casey and Nikki Lawson were sitting on the sofa and the loveseat respectively, Casey with an American Rifleman magazine in his lap and Nikki tapping away on a notebook computer resting on the edge of the coffee table.

"Back among the living, I see," said Casey, quietly as he looked up at him. "How are you going to keep the world safe for democracy sleeping all day, Bartowski?"

A smile grew on Chuck's face. "Oversleeping isn't such a big deal when you surround yourself with the best, big guy." He watched Nikki smile and what looked like redness on Casey's cheeks at the comment and it warmed him. "How long have I been out?"

"About sixteen hours," said Nikki looking at the clock display on her notebook, "How are you feeling boss?"

"Rested. Like I've been hanging out on a beach for a month…without a single bite to eat. I'm starving."

"Hng. He's fine. Thinking of his stomach, as usual."

Ellie sidled up to him and put her arm around him giving him a squeeze. "Then let's get you something to eat. Manoosh is in the kitchen making lunch. Why don't we go put in your order and talk for a minute? I'm sure you have some questions."

"Yes, I do. And the first, is how is Sarah?"

Ellie gave him a guarded smile, "We think she's going to be fine, little brother." She gave his hand a squeeze as she released him from her one-armed hug. "C'mon, I think Manoosh will want to talk about this, too."

They walked into the kitchen to find Dr. Depak wearing an apron, alternating between making sandwiches and animatedly gesturing at a TV on the wall as he watched a basketball game. "Hey, you're awake. I'll bet you're hungry. Can I make you a sandwich? I've also got some broccoli cheese soup cooking on the stove."

"What, no nachos?" asked Chuck with a grin.

"Ha! You _are_ feeling better. Maybe I'll make some nachos later. How is the head? Any headache?"

"No. Oddly enough, no headache at all. Not at all like all the other downloads. In fact, I feel great. My head almost feels weightless."

"That's because we removed your brain." Manoosh laughed raucously as Chuck's eyes went wide, "No, really, I'm very gratified to hear you tell me that. It means we have accomplished our goals. This is the best possible news, Chuck."

Chuck looked back and forth from Manoosh to his sister and the elephant taking up the rest of the space in the room, "What does that mean for Sarah? Is she going to be okay?"

The two doctors exchanged a pensive look that made the hair stand up on his neck. "We don't know for sure," said Ellie looking briefly at her feet before meeting his anxious gaze, "Sarah's scans look good, and her vitals are normal, but we won't really know much more until she wakes up. Her brain was subjected to major trauma. Clinically speaking, these sorts of things can be very unpredictable." Ellie looked at her brother with pain in her eyes but pressed on with optimism, "Your response to the download is the only thing we have to go on right now. That alone is reason for optimism. We need to be patient, Chuck."

Chuck looked at his sister and Manoosh somberly, "How much longer do you think she'll be out?"

"We don't know that either, Chuck," replied Manoosh, "We had her mildly sedated until just a few hours ago. The effects of the drugs should be about out of her system by now. We'll have to wait and see."

"Well, in that case I'm going to go stay with her. I don't want her to wake up and find herself alone."

"That's fine, little brother. Why don't you go ahead and go back upstairs. I'll bring you something to eat."

Chuck gave his sister a hug and a peck on the cheek, "Thanks, El. Why don't you make it three sandwiches. I'll bet Sarah will be starving too."

"That's the spirit, Chuck."

- II -

What a beautiful dream; the warm white sand under her and the sound of the crashing surf. Alone on an expansive beach, palm trees and crystal blue water, and white puffy clouds fed by a cool onshore breeze. It was a feeling of complete peace. But something was missing. Chuck. Her Chuck. Where had he gone? Why would he miss out on something this tranquil and sublime? She sighed as she thought of him. Memories floated by her like brightly colored balloons on the wind; a broken phone, a young ballerina, a fountain in a courtyard, and unspoken feelings buried deep, wanting to be given flight. So much longing and so much time wasted, and the fear that he would be taken away from her; all the while hiding behind a façade of strength. She was so hopelessly in love with him, her adorable nerd with the heart of a hero. She had given her own heart to him so long ago, and through all the waiting, all the trials and tribulations of the last five years, he had always been there for her, he had always come back for her, he never gave up. Well, there were those three brunettes...why was it always brunettes? And there was a terrible memory of her own mistakes with a dark-haired robot of a man who had manipulated and betrayed her; but they faded to insignificance when she thought of what she and Chuck had accomplished and gained when they were together. The two of them had literally gone to the ends of the earth to save each other, and they would do so again and again.

Then all of the sudden he was there next to her wearing a pair of board shorts, his faded Browncoat t-shirt, and a soft smile on his face, his eyes sparkling with mirth. He leaned over her and placed a gentle kiss on her lips as he caressed her hair and cheek, and it made her tingle all over. He lay there next to her propped up on his elbow, his hand gently stroking her arm, just gazing at her with this indescribable look of love in his eyes. She wanted to tell him to take his shirt off and get some sun, so she could admire his lean body. But he then leaned over to give her another kiss and stood up and walked away down the beach looking back at her with that smile on his face…that smile. She knew he'd be back, and another sigh passed her lips as she lay there on her back soaking up the warm sun on her bare skin.

He was back. He sat down next to her with a plate of sandwiches and a large glass of tea. He just sat there on the sand munching on a sandwich with that smile on his face between bites…that smile again. It made her shiver from head to toe. She felt her stomach growl ferociously. God, she was hungry. But her hunger held a double meaning. She was also hungry for him. She wanted to devour him right then and there on that secluded sandy beach. The thought consumed her. Her longing for him pulled her toward him like a powerful magnet.

And she awoke looking at him. Blinking, she reached out for him, and his sweet voice split the silence. "Hey beautiful," he said with that smile and an unmistakable look of love and hope in his eyes, "How are you feeling? Are you hungry? I brought you something to eat if you feel up to it."

He looked at her a little confused when the first words that passed her lips were a soft laugh, and it made her smile. "I'm starving. But first things first; c'mere."

Chuck quickly got up from his seat and sat on the edge of the bed as she pulled him to her and reached up pulling him down to her lips for a warm and tender kiss as her hand ran through the hair on the back of his head. It was everything she remembered. It was electric. She felt it to her very core. "I missed you. I missed you so very much," she said, as their lips finally parted.

He just beamed that huge smile back at her as something suddenly ignited in his eyes, a flash of realization. She was back; those lost years that held so much inexpressible meaning to them were back. He could see it. And he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into one of his sisters trademarked bone-crushing hugs as he kissed her neck. And time suddenly lost all context as they held each other. He kissed her again, passionately. Sarah could hear a heart monitor racing in the background, and she gaily laughed inwardly to herself as she realized it was hers.

She gazed yearningly at him again as their lips parted, stroking his cheek with her hand. "I love you. I've loved you since that first day I walked into the Buy More. You stole my heart from me when you told a young girl that real ballerinas are tall."

- III -

"What's that sound?" asked Manoosh when he walked into the living room from the kitchen with a couple of iced teas in his hands.

Ellie gave him a little smirk and shared a knowing look with Nikki. "We think Sarah might be awake."

Casey just made a disgusted grunt.

"She's awake? That's great news. C'mon, Ellie we should go check on her," the Doctor said as he started to head for the staircase.

"Stop!" exclaimed Ellie and Nikki in a loud, unified, whisper.

"_Listen_, you idiot," said Casey, acerbically, "Ugh, my ears."

Nikki looked at Casey with amusement as Manoosh turned back to them and his eyes went wide with surprise. "Oh….Oh! Oh, my gosh, probably not a good time to go up there yet, is it?" he said as he broke into a broad smile.

"Ya think?" retorted the Colonel. "I'm going out in the backyard. I've had enough of listening to _that_ for one lifetime."

Manoosh set the iced teas hurriedly on the table and looked at the two women who were trying to choke back a laugh. "I think I'll join you, Casey."

"Then bring the Scotch with you, unless you've got something better in your black bag."

A while later the noise subsided, and after giving them a little longer just to be sure, Ellie walked cautiously up the stairs and tapped on the partially open door with her fingertips.

"Come on in Ellie, we're decent," came Sarah's pleasantly blissful voice from the room.

Ellie stepped into the room to see Chuck and Sarah sitting up in the bed with the plate of sandwiches bridging their laps. Happy smiles filled their faces as they ate.

"I hope you don't mind, I went ahead and removed my I.V. It was sort of getting in the way," said Sarah with a touch of mirth in her voice. Chuck was just sitting there chewing his sandwich, with a silly grin, as he blushed.

"No, no, that's quite alright. I understand," answered Chuck's sister with a stifled giggle, "I guess you're feeling okay? No headache?"

"I had a little one when I woke up. But then I took a couple of Chucks, and now it's all gone," said Sarah with a broad grin.

She laughed at the look Chuck gave her. "Sarah, please, it's my sister," he laughed embarrassedly back.

Ellie looked at her feet for a moment trying to fight the laughter, "I'm a firm believer in holistic remedies if they work. I'm glad to see you're feeling better, Sarah." She couldn't contain her curiosity. "Anything else to report?"

"Other than the fact that multiple orga-

"Sarah, please!"

-seem to be much easier?"

"Not what I meant," Ellie answered, with an embarrassed giggle and a red face, "But that's good to hear too, I guess."

Sarah braced herself. "My memories are back."

An ear-splitting squeal rattled the windows and Ellie flew onto the bed crushing Sarah with a hug as the remaining sandwiches and the plate went flying across the bed. "Oh, Sarah, I'm so happy for you!" she said into her ear before giving her a kiss on the cheek.

Chuck watched his sister and Sarah with a look on his face like everything was now right with the world. The tumult of the last few days vaporized in an instant. Finally, Ellie let Sarah go and sat up next to her on the edge of the bed. "So, how are you coping with the sudden return of all those memories?"

Sarah was wearing a beaming smile but a very slight undercurrent of distress was showing in her eyes. "It's a bit overwhelming, Ellie. Many of them are very vivid, a few of them not so good. It's almost like they've been enhanced, but maybe that's just because they're so new to me…again." Her expression turned contemplative. "I'm going to need a little time to think about some of them. But I'm so very happy to have _all _of them back," she added with a broad smile on her face, again.

"Take your time Sarah, don't rush it. If you need anyone to talk to, we're all here for you," said Ellie, sympathetically.

"Oh, we _will_ talk about it. Count on it. There is so much I only want to discuss with my sister."

"Hey, what do I look like, chopped liver?" asked Chuck with a tinge of jealousy in his voice.

Sarah looked back at her husband mischievously, rolling her eyes, "Oh, we're going to have plenty to talk about too, buster. And don't think it's all going to be wine and gardenias."

"Uh, oh," said Chuck, as his face went pale.

"Yeah, uh, oh, is right. You've got some splainin' to do," and her face became serious. "I think I've got some explaining to do too."

"It's water under the bridge, sweetie, you don't have to go there if you don't want to."

"No, I think we need to, Chuck. I need to. It will help me deal with all of this."

Ellie placed her hand on her sister's arm. "Take it slow, Sarah. Don't try to do all the heavy lifting at once. Try to maintain your balance, okay?"

"Okay, Ellie. I understand. Balance. I've had more than one sensei say that to me over the years," said Sarah, with a pondering smile.

"Well, I'm glad you're at least willing to listen to my sister and your sensei," Chuck quipped.

"Very funny, you goof," Sarah answered, reaching over to squeeze his hand, "Memories or not, I'll always listen to you, sweetheart." She looked into his brown eyes affectionately, "Don't you ever forget that."

"Not even possible."

"Okay you two, it's time you shared this charming banter," said Ellie with a laugh, "How do you feel about coming downstairs? There are people waiting to see both of you. We'll be getting dinner started in a bit, so get cleaned up and come on down."

"Yeah, okay. A shower sounds really good." Sarah looked at her husband from the corner of her eye with a devilish grin. "How about it, sweetie, care to join me?"

Chuck answered her with a broad smile and vigorous nod of his head.

"Don't take all afternoon," said Ellie, with a snicker as she got up and walked toward the door.

- IV -

When they came down the stairs Sarah squeezed Chuck's hand tightly as she looked into the living room, taking in the furnishings and the friends, old and new, who were sitting in them. The scene looked casual and serene, except that Casey's Sig Sauer and one of Nikki's suppressed STI pistols were laying on the coffee table, placing a punctuation mark on the gravity of the moment. They all looked at her and Chuck with smiles on their faces, even John Casey, and he was the first to speak. "How is my favorite partner doing? Are you feeling like your old self again?" he asked quietly, almost shyly.

Sarah looked at him and smiled affectionately. She wanted to rush over to him and hug him, and it took all of her will power not to. For some mystifying reason, of the many returned memories she was experiencing, her memories of John were some of the most endearing. They had been through so much together with the one person who meant the absolute world to her. In his own strange and very obscure way, Casey had been supportive of what had happened to Chuck and her, almost from the very beginning. Looking back now through the lens of almost perfect hindsight her returned memories had created she realized John had been impacted by the stigma of Prague as well. There were his subtle probing questions, the biting remarks, or a simple hard look about her choices and intransigence after the breakup, a breakup that should never have happened. In his own way, Casey had done much to get her to see what she and Chuck were doing to each other and had helped to get her and the love of her life back together, even after she had lost her memories. She owed him so much.

But he had his own way of doing things. He held the world and his relationships within it at arms length. It took her years to realize he did it to protect himself. Someday when they were alone she was going to ambush John Casey and give him that big hug he so richly deserved, even if he didn't want it. "I'll try to ignore the fact that you used the word 'old' in that question," she said, with a sly grin.

"Hng, I was never known for my tact with the ladies, just ask Roan Montgomery."

"Yeah, well, you seem to be getting better at that. Where's Gertrude?"

Casey's hidden grin grew a bit wider, "She's helping to secure the place where you and Chuck were being held and taking care of some business at her office. We'll see her in a couple of days. Right now opsec requires that she and others stay away. We instituted a communications blackout before we brought you and Chuck here from Castle."

"That makes sense," said Sarah looking at the four good friends sitting around the coffee table. "I'm sorry she couldn't be here with you."

"It'll only be for a few more days, I'll survive," he answered evenly.

"Speaking of here," said Chuck, finally, "Our house, as a safe house? How did you pull that one off?" he asked looking at the faces in the room.

Sarah squeezed his hand. "It was my idea, but you'll have to ask Nikki how she did it so quickly. I thought it would take weeks to complete the deal."

"Hard cash always makes things go smoother," said Nikki, with a thin smile, "The house is actually still in escrow, which may be an additional advantage from a security standpoint right now. There are no records on file at the assessors office yet."

Chuck looked at Nikki inquisitively, "Can't they still find us by purchase records?"

"Not likely, Sarah chose a pretty obscure name for the deed. We created a whole new identity for it."

"Oh, really?" Chuck raised an eyebrow, "And what name was _that_?" He shifted his gaze from Nikki to Sarah, who was now looking at the floor with a troubled expression on her face. "Sarah, what's the matter?"

Averting her gaze, Sarah slowly tugged him around the couch to the passage between the living room and the dining room. Holding his hand in hers she placed them on the carving of their names on the frame and traced their fingers over every scratch in the wood, finally looking up at Chuck pensively with misty eyes, before turning to see four very curious friends and family watching them. "C'mon, we need to talk," she said softly to him as she pulled him from the room toward the back door.

"I wonder what that was about?" asked Manoosh after they heard the door to the backyard close.

"One can only imagine," said Ellie, empathetically, "It must be a bit overwhelming for Sarah right now."

"I think I know," said Nikki, "Sarah told me the name we picked for the deed was hers."

"Hnm. Oh, boy…" said Casey under his breath.

"Then they may be out there a while," Ellie said thoughtfully as she started to get up from the couch. "Why don't we get dinner started, Manoosh?"

"I thought we were grilling steaks tonight? That's Casey's specialty, you know. He doesn't even allow me near the grill."

"The Beastmaster is on the back patio, no way am I going out there," said Casey with stark finality.

"Big, tough, John Casey," Nikki chuckled, "I suppose dinner will have to wait a bit, then."

"Hmg," Casey grunted with resignation, "How about a drink then? Can I pour one for anybody?"

- V -

Sarah led Chuck out into the backyard and quickly surveyed the surroundings. She walked briskly to a new oak glider sitting on a small red brick pad under an oak tree at the edge of the lawn. "Sarah, I think I know what this is about," said Chuck as she sat on the bench and patted the seat.

"Sit with me, Chuck, I'm not ignoring this, not any longer."

"Sarah, it doesn't matter, you know you'll always be Sarah to me, it really is water under the bridge. You're-"

"No," she interrupted brusquely, "It's dirt swept under the rug, and we need to finally talk about it." She shook her head, looking off into the yard, "Dammit, Chuck, just shut up for once and let me say what I have to say. God, when I think about how much easier all those conversations around the fountain would have been if you'd only let me say my piece; so much heartache could have been avoided."

Chuck swallowed loudly as he settled to the bench, "Sarah, I don't need to know who you were, because I know who you are. If this is about the name on the deed you can put it to-"

"Chuck, please!" Sarah grabbed his hand and held it tight while she looked into his eyes, "Just zip it, and listen!"

His eyes went wide as he raised his other hand to his pursed lips and pulled his thumb and forefinger from one corner of his mouth to the other. It broke the tension a bit and Sarah couldn't help but smile at his gesture.

"Chuck, you're a wonderful talker…but sometimes you're a lousy communicator. We both are. For years you tried to get me to reveal some of my secretive past and I resisted. Then when I finally wanted to share it with you, you didn't want to let me…when I really needed to so badly. I don't talk. And when I finally want to you always interrupt me with one of your rambling speeches. I love you, honey, but please let me say this."

Chuck nodded solemnly and started to rock the glider looking at their hands clasped in his lap.

Sarah squeezed his hand to get him to look up at her. "I realize now that asking you to run away with me was wrong. I should never have asked you to make that choice, not when it meant giving up almost everything that was real in your life, especially your family and friends, _our _family and friends. What we had was real, what we _have _is real. But it wasn't enough. Not when it meant both of us had to give up almost our whole world to do it. It wouldn't have worked."

"But, Chuck, sweetheart, why didn't you state your case on that train platform in Prague? Why did you just shove those tickets in my hand and walk away with barely a word? You had to have known what a huge step that was for me to take, how much it would devastate me when you did that. It broke my heart, Chuck. I was like a boat without its rudder…I still loved you …and when you started seeing Hannah…I was looking for anything that would give me back that stability…anything at all. I felt like I had lost you, Chuck…lost you to another woman and the life of a spy. That's why I told him. But it was meaningless…because he was meaningless, a placeholder. I didn't even give him my whole name."

Sarah sighed. "The name on the deed is Samantha Lisa Zales. Zales is my mother's name. She and dad were never married, so it's my proper last name. Sam is just shorthand for Samantha."

She watched a smile slowly grow on Chuck's face. "Zales. That's Polish, huh? It fits," he softly chuckled, "You, and your Mom, and Molly are such jewels in my life," he said smiling sheepishly.

Sarah smiled a little sadly at his attempted joke, "Chuck, why didn't you tell me you knew about them?"

Chuck sighed loudly as he ran his hand over his face, "I don't know, Sarah. I was so overwhelmed by what had happened to you…and then when you left me on the beach that night…I was a mess. I should have told you to go see your mother; it might have helped a lot. You're right, I am a lousy communicator," he added with sad frustration in his voice.

Sarah looked at the ground in front of her wistfully as they rocked slowly back and forth in the glider, its motion keeping time like a metronome.

"I really screwed up didn't I?" said Chuck rhetorically, with sadness on his face. "I made so many stupid assumptions about how you felt, about what I thought you wanted for yourself, for me, for _us_, and what I thought I needed to do to have you in my life. I was such an idiot at Nadrazi station. It was probably the one time where everything was on the line and I knew it…and I ran. I should have gotten on that train with you. At least it would have given us an opportunity to sort it all out. I'm so sorry, Sarah."

Her eyes came up to meet his. They looked almost exactly like they did on that train platform in Prague, and it sent a shiver through him.

"You know, I thought we were done after I failed my spy training and you shut me out," he continued, "Sarah, you pushed me away so hard; I was just as lost and crushed as you were. Hannah was such a huge mistake; everything about it, especially the way I left her. I was such a jerk. I didn't think I deserved anyone or anything after that…nothing except the goal I had set for myself. I was just trying to get out of your way when you started seeing...him…I didn't want to, but… And after the whole red test debacle and having you drop it on me the way you did, and your refusing my calls…I thought you'd never see me the same way again. I hadn't changed, Sarah. I was still the same person deep down. Even if I'd justifiably killed Perry, it wouldn't have changed who I was. I'll always be that guy, babe. I never understood how you could think anything different."

Chucks face fell into his hands and he began to almost imperceptibly shake. "I was doing it all so I could be with you, doing what I thought we were meant to do, what I knew you were meant to do."

Sarah turned to him, taking Chuck up in a tight embrace, and whispered into his ear, "I know, Chuck. We both screwed up, sweetheart. I should never have stopped supporting you once you were on that path, not when you've _always _supported me, and _loved_ me, despite some of the dreadful things you know I've done. You could see the real me through all of that…garbage. I applied a terrible double standard to you and it was wrong…so terribly wrong. I almost ended up dead because of it, and I don't think you've ever stopped letting your guard down about how you thought I would perceive you, even after what happened on that bridge in Paris. You need to know that I'll always trust you to do what is right and true, always; just the way you've always trusted me. We can't have a marriage…and a family, without that."

Chuck looked up at his wife, reached up and brushed her hair behind her ear with his fingertips, and took her face in his hands. The kiss was tender, filled with love, caring, and unspoken forgiveness. As they slowly separated and gazed into each others glistening eyes an expression of realization grew on Chuck's face as Sarah smiled radiantly at him.

He broke into a broad smile. "A family?"

"I'm not using any birth control, sweetie, and I don't plan on starting."

- VI -

Ellie looked out the kitchen window at the two lovebirds kissing in the swinging glider with a big smile on her face. Nikki Lawson strode up next to her with a slight limp and giggled under her breath. "It looks like the glider was a good idea. Maybe I should get one for my own backyard. Of course, there's that little problem of finding the right guy to share it with," she concluded with a small sigh.

Ellie laughed back. "I really don't think you'll have a problem with that if you put your mind to it. Devon and I can help if you want. We know lots of smart and good looking doctors."

"I'm probably going to have to find one with a high security clearance, Ellie. Do you know any like that?"

"A few. You know, I'm highly placed in a clandestine government organization myself," she answered with a smile.

"Ha, you don't have to remind me. Speaking of which, when are you and me and Dr. Depak finally going to sit down to discuss that? I'm guessing it's safe to assume you're ready for me now."

"Yes, Nikki, your profile is ready. Manoosh finished it when he completed the ones for Chuck and Sarah. But we've decided we'd better wait a bit and run some tests on them," she said, nodding toward the backyard, "before we consider doing your Iv4 download; and although it's probably not relevant, we'd like you to let your leg injury heal a bit, too."

"You've got to be kidding me," said an incredulous gruff voice behind them.

Ellie and Nikki turned to see John Casey glaring at them from the doorway.

"Don't tell me you're actually considering doing that, Nikki." Casey's voice carried all the weight of a big brother severely chastising his sister for accepting a date with a known child abuser.

"It was the plan all along, John," she softly answered, "Chuck was supposed to act as my advisor through the whole process. Now, I guess, it will be both Chuck _and _Sarah."

"Hnmg…I'd kick your ass for this if I didn't trust Ellie implicitly," said the big man, with resignation. Manoosh had walked up behind Casey during the exchange and was listening with amusement. Casey turned and stared at him like he was a child abuser, making the doctor take a reflexive step back.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, John," said Ellie, appreciatively. "Nikki's been with the program since well before Devon and I moved to Chicago. She's the best candidate the project has seen since Chuck downloaded version one."

"It figures. I always knew there was much more to you than met the eye, Lawson. Damn, that Beckman is one crafty woman."

"She does have a habit of getting what she wants," acknowledged Nikki, with a conciliatory smile, "I can deal with it."

"I'm sure you'll find a way." Casey walked over to the window and looked out over the women's shoulders. "Hmn, I guess it's safe to light the grill now."

"It sure looks like it," said Manoosh with a cautious grin, "I'm starving. If you don't mind, Colonel, I'll go ahead and do that for you. It'll give me an opportunity to talk to them."

"Knock yourself out, Doc. I'll get the steaks and potatoes ready."

Chuck and Sarah looked up from their conjugal administrations when the back door opened and Manoosh walked out onto the patio. As they watched him walk to the grill their gaze shifted to the kitchen window and the audience they had. Both of them instinctively waved as they rocked in the glider. Ellie and Nikki waved back, Casey just shook his head and gave them a very small smile and walked out of view.

"Hey," said Manoosh as he stooped to light the grill burners, "How's it going out here, are you ready for some dinner?"

Chuck and Sarah exchanged a warm smile. "Yeah, we're both starving, again. Does Iv4 do something to the metabolism?" asked Chuck with a snerk.

Manoosh chuckled back at the question as he thought of their afternoon activities, "It can. Have either of you had a flash?"

The Intersect couple exchanged a quick look and shook their heads, "Nope," responded Sarah with a thoughtful smile, "at least I don't think _I_ have."

"Well it must've been something else you did, then," Manoosh said, with a mischievous grin.

"Haha, very funny doc," retorted Sarah, as her husband turned beet red, "Honey, we really need to do something about getting some privacy," she said, turning to Chuck and broadly grinning upon seeing his embarrassed reaction.

"Excuse me?" asked Manoosh, with mock offense as he started to walk over to them, "The rest of us are all starving ourselves so you can have some privacy. Maybe you two could stop making goo-goo eyes at each other for a couple of minutes and help with dinner."

"Too many cooks spoil the broth, doc. At least that's what Ellie's always told me. Though, I think she just thinks I'm a lousy cook and said that to keep me out of the kitchen," said Chuck with amusement. "I think I'll stay here and do what I do best."

"Gimme those lips, maestro," said Sarah with a giggle as she grabbed his face and laid one on him.

"Oh, geez, give me a break." Manoosh palmed his face and looked at his feet. "I came out here so I could have a word with both of you, and all you can do is painfully remind me how single I am?"

They abruptly stopped their osculation and looked at the doctor apologetically. "I'm sorry, Manoosh, I shouldn't have been so thoughtless," Sarah replied, looking a little uncomfortable. She was already trying to resolve an unexpected returned memory of using 'enhanced interrogation' techniques and manipulation through seduction on Manoosh in the past. She knew he probably remembered a few pieces of it in spite of the liberal use of twilight tranquilizers. Realizing how much he had consciously chosen to forgive her through the course of their new budding friendship didn't help matters any.

Manoosh looked back up, at first a little startled by their reaction, but a grin grew once again on his face. "It's okay, Sarah, I was only…halfway serious," he said with a short laugh. "Besides, I've been a slave to my work for the last three years. It's not like I've even made time for a date or anything like that. I'm pretty pathetic when it comes to that sort of thing, and I'm not much of a catch."

"Nonsense," retorted Sarah with a frown, "You have a lot to offer. You just need to find the right girl. She's out there somewhere, you know."

"Yeah, probably somewhere above ground," Manoosh, answered with a chuckle, drawing sympathetic smiles from Chuck and Sarah. "But I didn't come out here to talk about my lack of a love life. We need to talk about Iv4 a bit. I suppose both of you have noticed the pendants?"

"They're governors, aren't they?" Chuck asked, as he pulled his from beneath his shirt and looked at it. "It's a lot tinier."

"Yeah we've managed to miniaturize them even more. We even have some made up as earrings for Sarah. I don't think the Iv4 program is going to really require them much, it's more of a precaution in case either of you find yourself flashing multiple times in a very short period of time. We've dialed the attenuation signal back significantly. I still recommend you wear them, but you probably won't notice any discomfort if you don't have them on."

He looked at the two Intersects quizzically, "Have you experienced anything odd while wearing them?"

Chuck and Sarah exchanged a funny look with each other like they were conversing non-verbally before Chuck looked at Manoosh and spoke, "Not so much with these. But we had some pretty weird experiences with the old ones. We…lost time. There was this very strange sort of connectivity between us, like we were almost sharing each other's bodies and minds when we touched."

As Manoosh raised an eyebrow at them, Sarah shrugged, "It's kind of hard to explain."

"And you didn't tell us about this because…?"

"Because it was kind of cool. We liked it," Chuck admitted, as Sarah nodded with a slightly guilty look on her face.

"We meant to tell you. We were going to tell you and Ellie, but then things sort of went pear shaped before we could," said Sarah sheepishly.

"But it's not as pronounced now?"

"No," they both responded in chorus.

"But it's still happening."

They exchanged another look and turned back to him and nodded in unison.

"Hmmm," Manoosh looked at them thoughtfully for a few seconds and then chuckled, "My God, you are both so cute when you do that."

The Intersects smiled back at him awkwardly, "Is this something to be worried about?" asked Sarah biting her lip.

Manoosh studied the two of them for a few seconds again. "No, you can be adorable as much as you want," he said, and laughed at their expressions of mock reproach, "No, I don't think it's something to worry about, in fact we kind of anticipated it. The governors are causing a harmonic effect between each other and your Intersects. Actually probably your whole nervous systems; however, I don't think it's harmful in and of itself. It may warrant some further study, though."

"As long as no needles are involved," Chuck said, squeamishly.

"Ha. I don't think we'll need to use any needles. But since we're on the subject – testing and Intersects, not needles," he added, seeing Chuck's alarmed expression, "there is something I'd like you to do for me. It's sort of a test I devised when I designed the skillset database."

"What would that be?" asked Chuck curiously.

"Have either of you seen the animated feature film, Tangled?"

"Umm, no," Sarah paused and pursed her lips, "We were going through a pretty rough period at that time," she said, her gaze falling to her feet as Chuck fidgeted a bit. "We weren't seeing each other much then, and life just sort of got in the way after that. We never got around to seeing it, but we've talked about it."

"Morgan never forgave me for that," said Chuck with a soft laugh.

"Well, I'm surprised, too. That is one movie I had a hard time picturing you _not _seeing. But it's even better that you haven't…yet."

"What are you getting at, Doc?" said Sarah, inquisitively.

"I'd like you to sing the song 'I See the Light' to me," he said, with a smile, "it's a duet."

"Sing a song? You're kidding. I don't sing, and I don't even know the words," said Sarah, dubiously, raising an eyebrow.

Chuck's eyes glazed over for an instant that only a trained expert like Manoosh would have noticed, and then grew wide as he gaped at his wife. "Oh, yes you do," he said as he looked into her eyes, "Just think Disney and Tangled and I See the Light, together." He smiled broadly when he saw the flash in her eyes and the grin growing on her face.

"Wow, that was strange," she said with a hint of awe in her voice.

"Yeah, that was a bit different," Chuck, agreed.

"So sing it," challenged Manoosh, "You can do it, belt it out."

"I don't know," said Sarah, squeamishly this time.

"C'mon, don't be shy. As they say in those shoe ads – just do it," the doctor said with a grin.

Sarah exchanged another non-verbal look with Chuck and swallowed loudly when he smiled at her expectantly and nodded.

Reluctantly, she started to hum and then began to sing. Softly at first, but on key, in time, and very beautifully, the words came from her.

"All those days watching from the windows  
All those years outside looking in  
All that time never even knowing  
Just how blind I've been"

She stopped abruptly and stared in shock at her beaming husband as her mouth fell open for a couple of seconds, and then she smiled as she gathered herself, and continued.

"Now I'm here blinking in the starlight  
Now I'm here suddenly I see  
Standing here it's all so clear  
I'm where I'm meant to be"

"And at last I see the light  
And it's like the fog has lifted  
And at last I see the light  
And it's like the sky is new  
And it's warm and real and bright  
And the world has somehow shifted  
All at once everything looks different  
Now that I see you"

They hummed the refrain together and Sarah's smile grew bigger when Chuck sang his part, and she marveled at the breathtaking sound of his voice.

"All those days chasing down a daydream  
All those years living in a blur  
All that time never truly seeing  
Things, the way they were  
Now she's here suddenly I know  
I'm where I'm meant to go…"

It was extraordinary the way they sang it without accompaniment. Like they could hear the music in their heads. When they sang the last of the lyrics together, gazing at each other, Manoosh clapped loudly, pulling their attention from one another. "WOW, I knew I picked the right song for that. _That _was terrific," he exclaimed enthusiastically.

"No, that was amazing!" said Ellie awestruck from the open backdoor as she started to clap. She and Nikki were standing there on the back porch with wonder written all over their faces. Casey stood in the doorway with a platter of steaks and potatoes in his hands apparently not knowing quite what to do with the moment. All he could do was smile thinly at them, but there was an unmistakable sparkle in his eyes.

Sarah turned to Chuck and her hand came up to her mouth as the meaning of the words behind the lyrics hit her and she looked into her husband's eyes. She could see the impact they had on him too and she launched herself at him in a tight hug as they rocked in rhythm tangled up in each other on the glider. "That is _not _the last time you're going to sing to me, Mister Bartowski," she whispered into his ear, before kissing him lovingly.

"And I thought it was finally safe to come out here," Casey said, laconically, as he shook his head. "Call me when you're through with the lady feelings, okay?" And he turned and walked back into the house.

- VII -

"So how long is this little vacation going to last?" asked Sarah, as she deftly cut a bite of her ribeye steak and savored it. "Oh, my, Casey, this is so good. Remind me to have you over to grill for us more often."

Casey grunted softly, the one that meant 'thanks'. "I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Call me anytime." His eyes narrowed slightly, "But the glider is off limits when the Beastmaster is lit," he warned.

"I think we can accommodate that request if it means a meal like this," Chuck quipped with the Bartowski smile. "But I second Sarah's question, what's next?"

Ellie and Manoosh shared a brief look, and then looked over at Nikki hesitantly.

"Do you have to talk about that now? Or are you going to insist on ruining my digestion," said Casey, with disgust.

"Huh?" Chuck looked up at the three of them and then to Sarah and Casey who were sitting next to each other.

Ellie cleared her throat, "You're right, John, we'll discuss that later; maybe over after dinner drinks. You can go clean your guns or something if you want while we're doing it."

"Roger that," said the big man.

"What is this about?" asked Sarah looking guardedly around the table.

"I'm going to be an Intersect." Nikki exchanged a brief sharp look with Casey. "We'll talk about it later, but I'm going to need your help," she said, looking at Chuck and Sarah's surprised faces.

"So _you _were the third profile," said Chuck, with realization.

Nikki nodded, glancing cautiously at Casey. "Later."

"Okie, dokie," answered Chuck as he looked at his partners, noting the concerned look on the Colonel's face.

"We're also going to conduct a few tests on you and Sarah, to verify the viability and stability of the new Intersect, and to test your memory retention of skillset flashes," said Manoosh looking thoughtfully at Chuck and Sarah. "I may ask you to sing that song again in a couple of days," he added with a grin.

"So we get to be guinea pigs for a few days." Sarah took another bite of her steak. "I think I can live with that if you keep feeding us like this."

"We're not going to work you too hard," said Ellie, smiling wryly, "Mostly, we want you and my brother to rest and heal a bit from the trauma you've been subjected to. And I'd really like to get home to see Devon and my daughter in a couple of days."

"Oh, my gosh, Ellie. I'm so sorry," Chuck, exclaimed, "you must be worried sick over them. Maybe we could bring them here."

"Can't do that Chuck," Casey said with conviction, "It's too big of a security risk right now. Our Fulcrum friends are still running around loose. Besides, there's not enough room here anyway. Nikki and I are already sleeping on the couches. John Rogers and an NSA security team are watching Devon and Clara."

"Casey's right, Chuck," agreed, Sarah, "Bringing Devon and Clara here right now would only place all of us in greater jeopardy."

Chuck reluctantly nodded, lost in thought, and then looked at his NSA friend, "So some of them got away. You were the one who shot McKay and my bindings weren't you?"

Casey nodded curtly back, "_Most_ of them got away, Chuck, including Sloan and Preston, and their science team. They used an access tunnel to a neighboring building. We think they must have had vehicles parked there. Yeah, I shot that S.O.B.," he added with satisfaction.

"So we're certain they're still in the country? I flashed on a map of the Czech Republic in one of the offices in that building. They have a base somewhere near Hradec Kralove. I could probably pinpoint it on a map."

"Beckman's been watching the airports and all international flight plans. She hasn't seen anything to indicate our friends have left the country, but I'll let her know they need to concentrate the search on the Czech Republic," Nikki said, as she got up from the table and walked into the living room to fetch her notebook computer off the coffee table.

Chuck watched Nikki limp back to the dining room, studying her thoughtfully, "Was anyone besides you injured, Nikki?" he asked, as she sat back down at the dining table, "What you did in Castle was pretty amazing. You kept my sister and Manoosh from being captured, and I'm very grateful. Thank you for that. How is the rest of the team?"

Nikki allowed a small smile onto her face and shrugged, "I was just doing what I had to do, boss." Her smile faded as she started to tap on the keyboard and she paused, looking back up at Chuck and Sarah. "I failed to do what I set out to do; rescue all of you. We almost lost you. If it hadn't been for Morgan…I hate to think what might have happened to you and Sarah." She took a cleansing breath. "The rest of our team is fine, but some of the NSA agents and part of the JPL Annex rescue team were lost."

"Lost?" Chuck exchanged a bleak look with Sarah.

Nikki glanced at Casey. "Three agents at the Buy More and ten more, on the Blackhawk that was shot down, were killed," he said quietly.

"They shot down a helicopter?" Chuck asked, incredulously.

"Yes, with a MANPAD. It could have been much worse," Nikki replied with a sigh. "We were very fortunate. The Buy More was almost demolished. Everyone else is fine, no other injuries, except the Buy More employees who were caught in the initial gunfire when Castle was breached, and they're all going to make a full recovery," She glanced again at Casey and he nodded stoically.

"Chuck…Station Chief Oddo was on the helicopter."

"Oh, no." Sarah reached over and took his hand.

"I'm sorry, boss. I know you liked him and you had become friends."

Chuck just nodded grimly as he gripped Sarah's hand

"We have to put an end to this," said Casey, resolutely, "once and for all."

"I think the General agrees," said Nikki, looking at her notebook screen, "she wants us to be ready for a briefing at 0800 in the morning."

- VIII -

Chuck awoke to the sensation of a soft kiss on his collar bone, and a warm, naked, and slender, but curvaceous body draped across him. Her blonde tresses tickled his ear and his cheek. The gray-blue light of early dawn was softly illuminating the room through the window, and the memory of the night before, and what had started out as a moment of tender comforting that had transformed into a celebration of life was still fresh in his mind. "Mmmm, mornin', beautiful. How'd you sleep?"

Sarah lifted her head and smiled affectionately at him, pulling her hair to the side with a sweep of her hand. "Wonderful. How could I not, after what you did to me last night?"

"The feeling is mutual," he chuckled, "I wonder who's responsible for putting the Kama Sutra and those illustrated sex manuals in the learning database?"

"I don't even want to ponder it," she answered with a giggle.

"That has got to be one of the strangest flashes I've ever had," he said, as he tightened his arms around her and the fingertips of one hand caressed across the dimples on the small of her back and the other along the side of her breast.

"MmmHmmm…Ooohh, don't you start something you're not willing to finish, Mister Bartowski."

He quickly rolled her over onto her back and kissed her at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, relishing the shudder it elicited from her as Sarah tilted her head back granting him better access with a soft moan. He kissed her repeatedly, moving up her neck to just below her ear, and then cupping her cheek in the palm of his hand kissed her deeply before planting another brief one on her lips. "After last night it would probably be a very bad idea waking Casey up this way."

Sarah raised an eyebrow and smirked as she wrapped her legs around him. "Then I think it's time for Mr. Casey to go home to Gertrude, don't you?"

"That probably wouldn't go over very well either. I'm sure he's pretty conflicted over his sense of duty and putting up with our noisy shenanigans."

"I can be quiet," she said, pulling his head down with her hand laced through his hair, as she nuzzled his ear and nibbled on the lobe.

"Haha, yeah, sure you can," Chuck said skeptically, as he kissed her again on her neck and his hands wandered.

Squelching a moan, she reached across the bed, grabbed the spare pillow, and smacked him with it. "Are you saying I don't have any self control?"

"Not where this is concerned," he said, running his fingertips over a particularly sensitive spot causing her to gasp. "I rest my case," he added with a snicker and a lop-sided smile.

"Hummph!" She reached down and returned the gesture, watching his eyes glaze over as he bit his lip to contain the sound. "You're really asking for it, buster," she giggled as she put more feeling into it, and smiled lasciviously at his body's response.

"Enough," he exclaimed, taking a deep shuddering breath, "I surrender."

"Surrender, huh? _Not _an option, Mr. B, and who said _you_ could stop," Sarah said as she released him and rolled out of bed. "I have an idea. We need some cover, a distraction, and I know just the thing. C'mon, let's go take a shower."

He just lay on the bed staring up at her for a long moment, standing there in all her glorious nakedness. She had thrown the covers off of him when she got up and was doing the same at him as she bit her lower lip and her eyes traveled languidly over him.

Finally, Sarah shook her head and reached over and ran her hand seductively over him, "Tag, you're it," she laughed, running to the bathroom with her husband hot on her heels.

- IX -

"Good, you're all there together," said the general on the large wall mounted monitor in the downstairs office Dr. Depak was currently using as a bedroom. She looked at the couple standing in the middle of the group holding hands, and smiled. "Chuck, Sarah, it's good to see that you're up and around, how are you feeling?"

They looked at each other doing that nonverbal communication thing before Sarah spoke, "My memory has returned, General, and we're both feeling quite good-"

"Huhm, _too _good," retorted Casey, quietly.

Sarah looked back at him with an expression somewhere between a scowl and a grin, while Chuck brought his hand to his forehead and blushed as he looked at his feet. They were surrounded by stifled smiles.

"Did you really think the sound of the running shower was going to cover _that _up?" said the Colonel mockingly.

"That is way more information than I need, Colonel Casey," said General Beckman, trying very hard to look stern. "Then I take it that the version 4 download was a success, Doctor Woodcomb?"

Ellie cleared her throat trying to choke back a laugh. "Yes, it appears at this point to be an unqualified success, General. So far the Iv4 database also seems to be working better than we expected."

"You can say that again," Chuck muttered, into his hand, causing Sarah to grin up at him.

"Alright, so the mood has improved at the Bartowski house," stated the General flatly, "let's move on. Lt. Commander Lawson, I assume you've had an opportunity to consult with Chuck and Sarah about your decision to join the Intersect team?"

"Yes, ma'am. We talked about it a while last night. My decision to go forward hasn't changed, in fact it is much stronger now."

"Very well. We'll plan on doing your download in one week's time. In the meantime keep consulting with Chuck and Sarah, I want you to go into this as informed as possible."

"General, we'll share everything with Nikki, but I do have one concern," said Chuck glancing at his wife.

"And what is that Chief Bartowski?"

"Well, ma'am, Nikki is a very important member of our team. I…" he looked at Sarah again and she nodded with a small smile, "_we _don't want to lose her. We're going to resist giving her up to another permanent assignment…vigorously."

"Well, Chuck, I'm glad you all think so highly of Lt. Commander Lawson." Beckman pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I never intended to reassign her. I rather like the idea of keeping you all together, at least for the time being. Mutual support is important to this project right now and _you_ are the one in the best position to provide it. At some point Nikki will have a partner and you and Sarah will be providing support for that agent, as well."

Chuck carefully studied the general for several seconds. Knowing what he and Sarah were now experiencing together sharing the Intersect 'experience' he couldn't help but wonder if the General knew what that might possibly mean. He decided, then and there, he and Sarah were going to have to have a heart-to-heart talk with Nikki about that, but he suspected Nikki already knew from watching them. He looked at Nikki and she gave him a slight smile. "Then, Diane, I hope you know how important it is that you give Nikki the final word on who that agent will be. Because you might get much more than you bargained for…again."

Diane Beckman smiled, biting back a chuckle, "You've always been about as subtle as a nuclear weapon, Chuck. We'll make sure the Lt. Commander is involved every step of the way, but the NSA is _not _Match dot com, so don't expect us to factor that heavily into the equation."

By this time Nikki Lawson was looking back and forth between the General and Chuck with her mouth agape. She looked at Sarah, and seeing her hand held next to her side, held flat, moving up and down, she schooled her expression. "Begging the General's pardon, but wasn't there another reason for you calling this meeting, ma'am?" she asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from the current topic.

The General gave her a short wry smile before her expression turned more serious and her eyes narrowed. "Yes, there was. Based on Chuck's flash and recovered data from the offices in Century City; we believe we may now have actionable intelligence about the location of Fulcrum's main base of operations and their intentions. Their goals aren't much different than Ted Roark's, but their plans for the Intersect agents they are creating appear to be very different. From what our analysts have pieced together so far, it looks they plan to assassinate several important eastern European leaders in order to destabilize the region and create puppet governments in the power vacuum. At this point we don't know what their intentions are beyond that, but the prospects look bleak. They've aligned themselves with several very powerful European financiers, so we think their goals might be economic in nature. Our teams in the Czech republic are coordinating with the government there to try to find them, but as yet we only have a search area narrowed to a hundred square miles, or so. Chuck, I'm sending you our most recent data and I want you and Sarah to analyze it."

"General, is what you're requesting going to require heavy use of the Intersect?" said Ellie, with a furrowed brow, "If so, I have reservations about them using it so soon in this manner. For all intents and purposes, Chuck and Sarah are still in recovery and I'm reluctant to expose them to the strain, at least for a few more days."

"I understand your apprehension, Ellie, and we'll keep their workload light, but I have concerns that the intel we've managed to gather may be perishable, and we have to act on it quickly."

"We can handle it, General," said Chuck, confidently, but glancing at his sister contritely, "This version of the Intersect is causing the least amount of strain I've experienced yet. I would, however like to be the one doing the heavy lifting on this for the time being, Sarah has been through a lot, and she is the one with the most trauma to recover from, and the most to get used to right now."

"Chuck, I can do it, I'm feeling much better."

"Humn, Chuck's right, Wa- …Sarah," Casey said, looking at her and tapping the side of his head, "Let him do the hard work for once, let yourself heal, and learn how to use that thing."

"I'm not going to get in the middle of your family debate," General Beckman said , showing some cracks in her patience, "Right now we need to stop these people before they put their plan in motion. I want all of you ready to travel on a moment's notice, if the need arises. We'll have a C-40 transport on standby at Edwards, just in case. Our analyst's will burst transmit the relevant files to you when we're done here." She looked at Ellie and Manoosh attentively. "Ellie, I may need to have you and Manoosh return to Castle to assist the team in a couple of days, contingent on the Bartowski's further improvement, of course. I'd like you to get started on finalizing Nikki's download preparations and start on several more profiles."

"General is that wise with several Fulcrum agents still on the loose here? They tried to nab Ellie and Dr. Depak once already along with Chuck and Sarah," said Casey, with a scowl on his face, "If you have to have them at Castle, I'd like to be there to provide security for them."

"I assure you Colonel Casey, we will provide very strong security for Manoosh and Ellie. I'm seeing to the selection of the agents myself. I want you here providing security for Chuck and Sarah with Lt. Commander Lawson. I don't want to have to replace either of you with someone else at the Bartowski residence right now. We'll arrange for the doctors pickup sometime tomorrow."

Casey responded with his grunt of reluctant resignation.

"Well, at least we won't have to sleep on the couch for a while," said Nikki with a slight smirk, winking at the Colonel.

"Before we finish here, Diane, if I may, I have a request, and you're probably going to think it's a rather large one."

She looked back at Chuck with exasperation, "What is it, Chuck? Are you pining for the good old days when I would dress you down in front of your colleagues during these briefings?" Beckman asked sarcastically.

"Nononono, I certainly don't want to back those days where all I did was try your patience on a daily basis. I was just thinking that, if you're going to have Ellie and Manoosh go back to Castle, maybe you could arrange for them to at least have dinner with Devon and maybe stay at home for a night. They haven't seen each other in days." He watched his sister return an appreciative look as the General considered his request.

"I would like to see my husband and daughter, Diane. It's been very hard being away from Clara," admitted Ellie, with an almost inaudible sigh.

"Very well, Doctor, I'll arrange it. Plan for another briefing at 1300 local tomorrow, team." And with that the screen went dark.

* * *

**A/N** Time to climb back in the Air Tractor and get back to work on Sarah Versus the Farm.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, and followed this story. I appreciate it very much. See you back here in a few weeks, the next act is going to be a Wingdinger.


	12. Act 11

**A/N** 3/8/13 - Yay! Lost Years is back! I can't believe it's been over four months since I've posted an update to this story. My profuse apologies for taking so long. To make matters worse I've been sitting on this act for over a month trying to decide if it fit well enough with what was coming next. I think I can finally say, yes it does, and I'll try not to keep you waiting so long for what follows. We're getting close to what I hope will be a satisfying ending. Well, if all goes well it could go on from there...in a very unambiguous way.

Thanks so much to my betas again, my wife, **somedeepmystery**, and **Steampunk Chuckster**, all of whom were very helpful, patient, and understanding while I fretted over and worked through some big decisions, rethought too many times where I wanted this to go, where the explosions where going to happen, and how big they were going to be. I never thought the outline would get torn up and rewritten so many times this late in the story.

We'll get there.

**I don't own Chuck, but it's still been a very rewarding experience.**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years  
**

**Act 11**

She sipped on a mug of coffee, lost in thought. Secrets. So many secrets. Dr. Eleanor Bartowski-Woodcomb now held almost as many as Chuck and Sarah. It ate at her to think that she was keeping some of them from her own brother. She sat at the kitchen table staring at her computer screen, her face drawn into a contemplative expression mixed with fatigue. They had just finished their second briefing with the general. The amount of data that Chuck and Sarah had been able to mine from the evidence that was found in the new Fulcrum's Century City lair was startling... and disturbing. Secrets and hidden plans. Nefarious struggles for wealth and power on a monumental scale.

This world she'd been so suddenly exposed to gave her pause. The thought that she had been pulled so completely into the same world of espionage that she'd only a short while ago insisted that Chuck should leave made her shake her head ruefully. She kept staring at the screen of her Roark 7 reviewing the video of Sarah's PET scans. She and Manoosh had insisted that her brother and sister-in-law be taken to the agency research clinic for tests before they were brought to the safe house. She shook her head again and pursed her lips. The safe house; it was Chuck and Sarah's house. The place where so many dreams of the future had been born, and a place where all of those dreams had almost come crashing down. The first time when Sarah almost murdered her own husband, and then almost immediately again, when Nicholas Quinn shot at Sarah, and Chuck took a bullet for his wife who didn't even know who he was.

It had broken Ellie's heart to think that the love she had watched develop over the course of five years had been torn so asunder by one callous and evil man. She watched helplessly as her brother reeled in the aftermath of his love's abduction and the destruction of those five years of her life when Nicholas Quinn tried to use Sarah as a weapon against Chuck. Ever since Ellie had learned what had happened to Sarah, she had taken it upon herself to do everything she could help her sister-in-law. Sarah was more like a true sister to her and one of her closest friends. She wouldn't have ever considered moving to Chicago if she and Devon hadn't shown up for an abruptly scheduled interview at the Westside Medical Center to discover General Diane Beckman and the Director of the CIA sitting at the conference table. The hope that the general had offered her was the only thing that could have torn her away from her brother and sister. And she couldn't say a thing about it to Chuck, at least not right away. Until the Iv4 team was assembled and started work she'd been held to complete secrecy about her new job. Even after she was finally given the go ahead to tell her brother something, it was very limited; only the very larger facts of just what she was now working on. And after all Chuck had been through as the first human Intersect, she felt he deserved so much more.

The PET scans she was now reviewing revealed an above normal amount of brain activity for a normal woman, yet they were all within the predicted parameters for an individual with the version four Intersect. In fact, they fit her predicted model perfectly; and Sarah had been far from normal before being Intersected as it was. Ellie heaved a blissful sigh and a small watery smile graced her face knowing what she'd been able to accomplish. She had her sister back in a way she could only have hoped for a few weeks ago; the sight of Sarah and her brother, so obviously, and so deeply in love spoke to her heart in oh so many ways. But it was all tempered by more secrets. And there was one huge secret that was weighing her down like a pair of concrete blocks tied to her feet. A secret she'd been sworn to by her own mother. The same mother who had abandoned her and Chuck for the life of a deep cover operative. Even knowing the reasons her mother left them didn't make it any easier; and they made the secret she'd promised to keep all the more difficult. At some point regret was going to overcome it, she knew it.

She was shaken from her reverie when the focus of all her efforts walked into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and they shared a happy but reserved smile.

"I'll bet you're excited to get home to Devon and Clara, aren't you?" asked Sarah Bartowski, as she picked up the coffee carafe.

"Very excited." Ellie's smile grew broader showing her teeth. "We haven't seen much of each other for the last several weeks, but the last few days have been excruciating."

"I understand." And she did. Now she understood all too well. Sarah paused as if in reflection, and then held up the carafe and rolled her eyes towards it, "Warm it up?"

"Sure," said Ellie, holding her mug up as Sarah poured.

"Well, we just spoke to the pickup team on the satphone," Sarah mused, "They're supposed to be here around dark." Sarah filled her cup, took a sip, and then pulled out a chair and sat next to Ellie. She placed her hand over Chuck's older sister's hand as she settled into the seat. Her thought filled gaze came up from their hands and met those of _her_ sister. She was so thankful she could call Ellie that. Sarah took a deep breath with misty eyes. "Ellie, I want you to know how grateful I am for what you, and Manoosh, and your team have done for me. I don't remember much about what happened after Chuck and I were captured; only that he saved me from falling into a terrible abyss."

Sarah paused, and spent several seconds regathering herself, as if what she was remembering couldn't ever possibly leave her, and then she gulped, and found her voice again. "Then there was this feeling, like I'd had everything that I _was_ ripped right out of me, like I'd been turned into an empty shell. I remember someone carrying me... Chuck..." she smiled wistfully, "and then... nothing. Then... something, something lifted this giant and dark weight off of me, and it felt so warm, so secure. I felt so whole again. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was a clean white beach. I was so very happy because Chuck was with me. But at the same time I was sad. I was worried that he'd died too, and that he'd left you."

Ellie swallowed audibly as her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to say something, anything that would convey the emotions she was feeling. But she had been left mute by what Sarah had shared with her.

Sarah placed her other hand on Ellie's and squeezed it firmly, "And then I woke up, Ellie. I woke _up_... and there was Chuck... there was... my _husband._" A grateful smile of relief filled her face as she saw a tear trail down Ellie's right cheek. "Thank you, sis. Thank you for bringing me back to my family," Sarah said, with a trembling voice.

As they shared that embrace; that long, deep, and heartfelt embrace, Ellie thought about all that had led up to it. The intense worry if whether the download had worked, for both her brother and Sarah. And the difficult time spent just waiting for them to wake up. Sitting, monitoring their brain activity and vitals, and waiting...waiting. Now, here they were, and better than she could have ever have dreamed. Her mind drifted back to the morning before when her brother had made that request to the general for her, a simple yet heartfelt request so that she could see her own husband and daughter. The chance to finally go home and experience some normalcy again, if only briefly. Chuck, her little brother, had always looked out for her, even as she had worked so hard to look out for him.

- II -

The team had all shared a wide range of emotions after that briefing yesterday morning with General Beckman as they stood in the den of Chuck and Sarah's new home. They looked from one to another as the monitor went blank; but no one said a word for what seemed like an eternity.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm hungry," declared Manoosh, "I think I'll go get some breakfast started," he said, turning toward the door with a thoughtful expression on his face. He stopped in the doorway and caught Chuck's eye. "Care to give me a hand? Those files can wait until after breakfast."

Chuck's pensive gaze shifted from Sarah to the doctor. "Sure, but I'm not going to be much help unless you're cooking pancakes."

"Don't be too sure about that," said Manoosh with a wry smile.

"Is this another test?"

"Yup, probably too easy," said the doctor as he stepped out of sight toward the kitchen.

"Oh, this I've got to see," said Casey, as he rubbed his hands together, "The Intersect meets Top Chef." He started to make for the door.

"Wa-wait-wait-wait, Casey," said Chuck, with a stunned looked on his face, "are you telling me you watch cooking shows?"

"Man can't live by war documentary's alone, numbnuts," responded Casey with a straight face as he walked to the door. "Hnmg, numbnuts. That's probably a very apt description for you right about now. C'mon, let's get this show on the road Bartowski, I'm hungry too."

"Wait! Casey... don't go just yet. We need to... talk?" said Sarah, with a flushed face and a tight grin. She exchanged a quick, nonverbal communication with Chuck, and then he looked at his sister and Nikki, who were almost in stitches, rolling his eyes toward the door with a silly grin on his face.

Chuck, Nikki, and Ellie made a hasty exit as Casey stepped uncomfortably back into the den. But Ellie's curiosity got the better of her and she stopped in the hallway outside the door.

"Contain yourself, Bartoswki," Casey said, with a warning tone, staying well outside Sarah's personal space.

Sarah looked up at him with that little smirk as she bounced on her toes; that smile that radiated from her baby blues. She averted her gaze to the door for a second then looked back at him from the corner of those intense eyes. "John, I apologize if Chuck and I have been… less than discreet. The last thing I wanted to do was make you feel uncomfortable," she lied, as she bit her lower lip. It was only a white lie, she laughed inwardly to herself.

"Bullshit. You and Chuck are milking this for all its worth. But I will admit I'm having almost as much fun razzing you two about it as… never mind, I'm probably not having near as much fun," he admitted, with a barely perceptible frown. He studied her for a few seconds as she smiled at him sheepishly. Casey then looked at the floor between them and gritted his teeth, before looking her in the eye. "Walker, I couldn't be happier that this has worked out so well for you. I'm glad to see you've recovered something we both know was very special. These last five years with _Chuck_, they've had a profound impact on both of us. It pained me to no end to think that you might have lost that forever."

Casey stood there grinding his teeth as Sarah stared at him with her mouth hanging slightly open. She had never heard John come even remotely this close to disclosing his feelings about _anything _before, or with so many words. _Dammit! Screw it. You're getting that hug whether you want it, or not! _She flung herself at him in the finest Ellie Bartowski style and his eyes went wide with surprise. Casey awkwardly patted Sarah's back as he struggled for breath under her intense grasp, and then he finally gave in and returned her hug with his chin resting on top of her head as she buried her face into his neck. "_Bartowski, _you know how I feel about this sort of thing..."

"I know," she mumbled into his chest,"Thank you, John... for everything. I couldn't have asked for a better partner than you." She released him, taking a step back still holding his hands, and smiled as she watched him relax just a bit.

"You've been a great partner, Sarah. I guess you remember now that it became more than that."

"Yes. I had no idea how close we'd become. It was quite a shock really." She released his hands, watching him cross his arms uncomfortably across his chest, but sharing a smile with her nonetheless, as she steepled her hands in front of her lips.

"I'm glad you remember," he said quietly, "I didn't want to lose all that _we'd_ gained either."

Sarah nodded back somberly as she dropped her hands linking her fingers together in front of her. "Thank you for all you've done for Chuck and me," she said, chewing her lip and fighting the moisture building up in her eyes.

"Don't mention it... please. You and the nerd deserve some happiness," he said with a very faint smile. "Sarah, do me a big favor, will you?"

"What's that?" she asked cocking her head a bit to one side.

"Watch out for Nikki during this whole Intersect thing."

Her eyes bored in on his causing him to fidget and tighten his arms across his chest. An untrained observer wouldn't have caught it. "You really care about her don't you?" she asked, pursing her lips.

He stared back at her for a moment. "Yeah, dammit, I really do."

"How serious is it?"

"Bartowski, if you _ever _repeat this to _anyone__…" _He said in exasperation as he ran his hand through his hair.

"Who would believe me if I told them?" she asked with a smirk.

"Hnmg." He shook his finger at her and paced back and forth like a very dangerous cat before he stopped and looked at her. "I'm in love with Gertrude. I don't think that will ever change. I want to make a life with her. But I love Nikki like a kid sister... kind of like you."

The corner of Sarah's mouth turned up suddenly and her head bobbed as she stared back at him with a tight lipped grin and swallowed audibly. She blinked rapidly several times trying to hold the tears back again.

"Knock it off, will you? This is hard enough as it is."

Sarah snerked.

"Look, you know how I felt about it when you downloaded the Intersect the first time. The only person who's shown any ability to handle this thing without going bonkers, is Chuck. And sometimes I still wonder about _him_," he added, with a snort.

"Iv4 is different, Casey."

"Is it? Are you sure? I understand it was probably your only option given the circumstances you found yourself in, but is it worth the risk to Nikki?"

"Ellie seems to think so. You trust her don't you? And don't forget, Nikki volunteered for this."

"I still think it's dangerous. There are just so many unknowns with it," Casey said, as he balled his hands into fists at his sides.

"Chuck and Ellie and I will make sure Nikki goes into this fully informed. And I'll be sure to voice any concerns I may have with her if I encounter any troubles with this Intersect before she does the download, okay?"

"Fine," he responded through clenched teeth. He looked at her intensely for a moment then shook his head. "We should probably get back with the others. Don't want them getting any funny ideas."

"It's been too quiet for that," said Sarah with a broad grin.

"Hmg, very funny."

"Casey?" she asked, as he turned for the door and stopped mid-step, looking over his shoulder at her, "I love you too."

He raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth turned up slightly as he slapped the door frame with his hand and walked out.

- III -

"Hey, there you are," exclaimed Chuck as Casey and Sarah walked into the kitchen, "Have a seat I'm making us some omelets and fried potatoes… and a couple of other things."

He move swiftly in front of the stove as he took a spatula and ran it under a stack of country potatoes in a large frying pan and then flipped the potatoes over from the back of the pan to the front several times without losing a single piece over the edge. Sarah and Casey froze half way into their seats as they watched him do it, before settling into their chairs with raised eyebrows. Then Chuck grabbed an onion and very swiftly diced it with a knife. As he picked the cutting board up and side stepped to the stove like a short order cook he bumped into Manoosh, who was laying out bowls of omelet ingredients on the counter on the opposite side of the stove. "You're getting in the way, Doc," he chided, with a grin.

Manoosh chuckled, "Sorry Chuck, it's a little hard to stay _out_ of your way right now."

Chuck froze with the cutting board poised over the potatoes and turned to ask, "Are you guys okay with onions in your fried spuds?"

Both Sarah and Casey just nodded as they stared at him. Neither of them had ever seen Chuck handle a knife quite like that before, even using the Intersect. They watched him quickly stir the onions in then grab a couple of cartons of eggs and start to crack them into a bowl three at a time and then swiftly whisk them as he poured in a little milk. The kitchen became very quiet as they watched Chuck work. All eyes were transfixed on him. Sarah looked up to see Nikki and Ellie standing in the doorway silently watching him cut up some fruit with lightning speed.

Momentarily Chuck looked up from the stove, "Okay I'm ready for omelet orders, what'll it be?" He looked at them curiously, "Guys? Don't be shy now."

"Bacon, cheddar, tomato, and avocado," Casey blurted out with a shake of his head.

They all watched as he spooned some melted butter into the pan and poured in some eggs. He readied another pan. "Next?"

"Tomatoes, green onion, mushrooms, and olives… and a little cheese," said Nikki in rapid fire before anyone else could say anything. She looked around the room with amusement. "Gotta be quick gang, but I don't think you'll be waiting too long."

The two omelets were quickly finished and Chuck plated them with potatoes and set them on the table along with a bowl of mixed fruit and with a pitcher of orange juice. He had the rest of everyone's omelets done and plated in short order and after he turned the stove burners off he picked up his and Sarah's plates. Seeing that Sarah had relinquished her seat at the small table for four he nodded toward the back door with a roll of his eyes and a crooked grin. "C'mon, let's go see if we can rock the glider and eat at the same time."

"Oh fer cryin' out loud," groaned Casey.

"If you have any trouble with it, it's probably in the Intersect," said Ellie with a snicker. She sat next to the bay window while she ate, and watched her brother and sister-in-law eat, playfully sharing their breakfasts with each other in the backyard.

They smiled at each other as they rocked back and forth in the glider feeding each other chunks of fruit and whole berries. "That was _very_ good, Chuck. Best omelet I've had in a long time. I guess you can't get out of cooking using the 'I'm a terrible cook' excuse anymore, huh?" Sarah said, as she worked to stab a grape with her fork in a bowl that was waving back and forth a bit in Chuck's hand. She grabbed his hand with a firm grip, "Hold still, please." She looked up to see him grinning broadly at her.

"I am _not _going to flash just so I can stab a stupid moving grape," she said narrowing her eyes with a thin smile.

"Hey," he laughed, "Ellie said it was in there."

"Whatever," she said, picking the grape up with her fingers and popping it in her mouth.

"I think Ellie and Manoosh want us to use it. You know, test it out on some small things, see if we encounter any problems with it while they're here. Something other than what goes on in the bedroom," he added with the eyebrow dance.

"Fine, but for the record, what goes on in the bedroom are _not _the small things, mister."

"Oh, don't you worry about that. I'm on a mission. It's a very big thing." He wiggled his eyebrows at her again.

"Oh, a mission, huh?" She picked up a raspberry with her fingers and placed it carefully on his tongue only to have him latch onto her fingers. She shook her head with a grin.

"Couldn't you tell? I'm shootin' for a boy," he said, after he released her fingers.

"Haha, you believe that stuff, do you? That does explain a few _things_, though." Now she was beaming at him.

"I saw it in the Intersect, so it must be true."

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"

Chuck's face lit up in a magnified version of the Bartowski smile and he took the plate from her hand, setting it along with his on the grass. "C'mere, you."

"Ah,ah,ah," she said with a giggle, holding him back with her hand on his chest, "You have to sing to me first."

- IV -

They had spent the rest of the morning with Nikki going over the files and the recently gathered intelligence from the Fulcrum offices in Century City, while Ellie and Manoosh observed them. They were both wearing portable EEG's while they worked. Both of them had flashed a number of times but the nature of the way the new Iv4 program collated and presented the data made it very hard to see when it was happening. It could be seen by watching the EEG readout, but there were few physical tells like the earlier versions of the Intersect. It also happened very quickly, quite literally giving new meaning to the word 'flash'. The new Intersect also had an uncanny ability to tell how important a piece of information was to the whole as new data was discovered and patterns developed. It could also adapt and pull new information from the environment. Sarah flashed on an internet news article while they were taking a short break that created a whole new flash out of the blue (or was it gray?), and then a third one from the new and combined database information that yielded a completely different result from the first two flashes individually. That one had resulted in an immediate call to the general because the information had proven to be so time sensitive.

As they worked through the files and flashed on the information they would log it on a computer and make a voice recording describing it. One of the things Ellie and her team wanted to know was how long the information within a flash was being retained. Chuck's experiences with the Intersect 2 had shown that information degraded from memory relatively fast if he didn't make a conscious effort to remember it, and skillset flashes that contained muscle memory data degraded even faster. The Iv4 program seemed to work in concert with the mind in a way that let the user decide with little effort whether the information should be committed to long or short term memory. The team's objective, and the original objective of Chuck and Ellie's father was for some learning and skillset flashes to be retained permanently at the users choosing, within reason. The theory was that the Intersect moved and held data in archive and it could be quickly accessed through association and cognitively in much the same way a person would access a normal memory or skill.

With Iv4 it appeared to be working, and Chuck reported being able to remember and access information with remarkable ease. But he balked at telling his sister what some of the specific information was when she asked him, saying, "It's classified." Ellie countered by responding "Chuck, I have the same clearances as you do," to which he answered, "It's a little embarrassing, okay?" Sarah just sat in quiet amusement during the exchange. She'd decided there was no way she was going to get involved in that conversation.

After a few hours Ellie looked at the accumulated data and the flash count for them and called a break. She looked a little puzzled at Chuck and Sarah. "I think you both should lie down and take a nap. Aren't you guys tired? I'm tired from just watching you."

"No, surprisingly, not that much, El," answered Chuck, with a one sided smile, "Nothing a Red Bull wouldn't fix." His smile grew bigger when his sister shot the predicted scowl at him with her eyes narrowed.

"How about headaches? Either of you?" asked Manoosh as he tapped away on his notebook PC.

"Nope, none at all," said Chuck shaking his head.

"I've got a very small headache," said Sarah a little guardedly with a one shoulder shrug when she looked at her husband and saw him frown. She reached over and squeezed his hand, "Don't worry, honey, I feel fine. I think it's mostly eye strain from all these files we've been reading. I haven't been feeling any discomfort from the flashes. Well, that triple flash did ring my bell a little bit, but it passed quickly."

"Hmmm, I may have to adjust the attenuation signal on your governor a bit," said Manoosh, as he scratched his chin. "I'll set up one of the spares so we can try it later this afternoon."

Ellie unhooked the EEG leads and removed the headbands from their heads. "I didn't see anything alarming on the readouts, but I think I'll have a look at the log from Sarah's triple flash just to be safe. Why don't you two get some rest and we'll finish this up after lunch. We're going to play with skillsets some more this afternoon. Nikki and John can review the logs while you nap."

"Do we _have_ to sleep?" asked Sarah, coyly, trying to hide a smile.

"Just try to relax a little bit, no flashing." Ellie smiled.

After Chuck and Sarah had left the den welded to each other's side, Nikki leaned over to Ellie and whispered, "Level with me, Ellie. Does Iv4 turn people into bunny rabbits?"

Ellie's answer was a laugh through her hand clamped over her mouth.

The rest of the day was spent finishing the files the General had sent and physical training on the lawn in the backyard. After a vigorous calisthenic workout Chuck and Sarah sparred with Casey and Nikki for about an hour and a half. The idea was for them to use the Intersect fighting skillsets but it was a little hard to tell when or if Sarah was using them because she already had 2nd and 3rd degree black belts in nine different styles. All four of them were wearing black martial arts dogis, but one thing stood out on close inspection; Nikki and Casey's clothing were covered with grass stains, Chuck and Sarah's had very few of them. They also looked less fatigued than their colleagues.

The two doctors sat in chairs next to the lawn watching. Ellie was still trying to get used to the idea that Chuck and their good friends could do what they did with their bodies without hurting one another. Nikki was particularly impressive to watch since she was the smallest of the four, and seemed to be faring quite well against the two Intersects. Chuck and Sarah were demonstrating a remarkable ability to work as a team, especially when they were touching each other. When they were in physical contact it was almost as if they were a single mind and body with multiple limbs. They overwhelmed Nikki and Casey easily every time the NSA agents tried to do a coordinated attack, and it didn't even look like the Intersect couple were going nearly as fast as they could have.

The Intersect couple. It was a concept that Ellie was still trying to wrap her brilliant mind around. Her goal had always been to save Sarah, but the result had become this; what essentially now amounted to a super-spy couple. It was the unintended consequences of getting her sister back and whole again.

- V -

Breaking out of her reflection of the previous day, Ellie glanced at the clock display on her monitor. The NSA team that would take her and Manoosh to her home in Echo Park would be here in less than an hour. She closed her computer, and after stowing it in its case, she left the cozy kitchen. As she was walking through the living room she spied Chuck and Sarah lounging on the couch watching a movie in each other's embrace. Tangled. They were tangled all right. She snerked, and the two lovebirds looked up smiling at her sheepishly.

"What?" asked Chuck, with a slightly guilty tone.

"Oh, nothing," Ellie giggled, "It's that we only just watched that last night, and yet here you are again-"

"I know, I know," her brother interrupted, with that goofy one sided grin that looked so much like a cartoon character, "We like it, okay?"

"Except for that part where she turns into a brunette," Sarah said flatly, with a wry smile.

"Ha! Well I certainly know why _you _like it," retorted Ellie, to her brother, as her gaze shifted to Sarah with a knowing grin.

"Well, um, uh," stuttered Chuck, as his mouth opened and closed. "Guilty as charged, and I do like her better as a blonde," he finally blurted out when Sarah playfully jabbed him in the side.

"You know, I _have_ been thinking of growing my hair back out long again."

Chuck slowly turned and stared at his smirking wife with his eyebrows up near his hairline.

"Not _that _far," Sarah added, with a laugh.

"I always did like your hair long."

"You didn't have to take care of it. God, after that one time when we played plumbers I thought I would never get it clean. What a gooey mess."

"Yeah, that role playing wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. Never again," replied Chuck with a chuckle.

They both broke their banter to look up at Ellie, who was wearing a shocked look on her face.

"It was a mission, sis, plumbers as in _cover,_" Sarah said, as her cheeks turned pink, and Chuck nodded vigorously.

"Thank you for the clarification," Ellie deadpanned. She closed her eyes and shook her head like she was trying to exorcise an image from her mind, "I'm going to go finish packing."

"Casey was there," said Chuck, his voice chasing after his sister, as she hurried up the stairs.

"_NOT helping," _his sister sang from the top of the landing.

Chuck turned to his wife and shrugged with a soft laugh as he watched her mouth turn into an impish grin. "You know, if you grow your hair out like that," he said, pointing at the TV, "I'll brush your hair for you every day."

"In your dreams, Mr. B. Hmm, role playing. Nice choice of words," she said with a smirk, and kissed him affectionately on the cheek.

"Bartowskis," said Casey, with a raised voice from the entrance to the hallway, "Put the home movies on pause and get in here, we're going to have company soon!"

"I think Casey's ears were burning."

- VI -

They all stood in the driveway outside the backyard gate in the evening twilight. Ellie gave Sarah a big hug, one of her patented bone crushers, and an affectionate kiss on the cheek. When she went to let her go, Sarah didn't, and she smiled into her sister's embrace and whispered softly into her ear, "You take care of my little brother, Sarah, he needs you. He worships the ground you walk on."

"I know." The two words flowed from her like a gentle breeze. "I've always known, sis."

"You're going to make me cry again," Ellie warned, pulling back slightly, looking into her best friend's eyes and squeezing her arms.

Sarah squeezed her back and gave Ellie that subtle tight lipped smile that was all so hers, the one that Ellie had missed so much; a smile that came at her at the speed of light from Sarah's eyes. "I know," Sarah replied, and she laughed in a way that could only be felt and not heard, "Go give Devon and Clara a hug for me."

With a sharp, choked laugh filled with emotion, Ellie cocked her head to the side and raised her hand quickly to catch a tear. "I will. And I'll make sure they both know it came just from you."

"Thanks, I'll have a hug for both of them in person, soon I hope. I see people are getting impatient," Sarah said, looking at General Beckman's handpicked entourage of very large and scary looking NSA agents, "You and Manoosh need to get going." She heard a growl of agreement behind her that could only have been John Casey.

Ellie gave her bother a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then smiled affectionately into Chuck's shoulder when she watched Sarah swiftly grab Manoosh and give the startled doctor a hug and a peck on the cheek as he turned bug-eyed. She watched Manoosh flush as Sarah whispered something into his ear and then releasing him from her arms, swatting him on the bottom with a grin.

When they stepped back from the embrace Chuck looked at his sister curiously. "Now what?" he asked through narrowed eyes as he studied the mirth in her eyes.

"Oh, it's nothing. Ask your wife."

As the caravan of three armored Suburbans drove back down the highway toward Echo Park, Ellie stared out through the thick Lexan glass of the side window, surrounded by bodyguards. She once again found herself reflecting on the last few days. Her thoughts were caught up in the miraculous transformation that had taken place in her sister-in-law. Seeing the stark change from the Sarah Walker of five years ago to the Sarah who she knew so well recently as her brother's wife had left her a little awestruck. Ellie had been studying the human brain for years but had never witnessed firsthand anything like this. It brought into sharp relief the changes that five years had made in the life of one person she loved so much.

It made her wonder about the changes that had taken place in herself during the last five years and what life would have been like if all those changes and emotional growth had all been suddenly stripped away. The thought gave her pause as she wondered how she and Devon would have dealt with such a thing. She'd seen and studied many clinical examples of brain injuries similar to this, and in the bulk of the cases where they involved couples the relationship had come through the trauma intact or even enhanced. It looked to her like Chuck and Sarah's love had survived before this miracle she had been a part of had happened too. She wondered in passing if the brain had anything to do with it at all. Ellie smiled at her reflection in the glass, realizing it might be a good topic for pillow talk with her own cardiologist husband whose life had been dedicated to the study of the heart.

"So what did Sarah say to you?" she asked turning to the doctor lost in thought sitting next to her.

"Hmm?" Manoosh looked up at her with a start, shyly avoiding her inquiring gaze.

"C'mon, don't play coy, Doctor. What did my sister-in-law say to you when she swatted you on the bottom."

"Oh, _that_," he answered with a nervous laugh, "She was just joking around."

"MmmHmm. And?"

"Huh, I, um," he choked, looking a little fearfully at Ellie, "Sarah said she was going to make it her number one mission in life - outside of getting pregnant - to have me married off within a year. She sounded frighteningly serious."

"Ha! You'd better take her seriously," Ellie said with a satisfied smirk. "You're in trouble, buddy. When Sarah puts her mind to something it gets done," she shook her head and giggled, "I may have to help her out with that one. I think I might already have one or two candidates for her to screen."

"I had a funny feeling you'd say that. It's becoming very apparent how much you and Sarah like to conspire. Anyone I already know?"

"Maybe," answered Ellie, cryptically. Dr. Ann Kelly was one woman who immediately came to mind.

- VII -

It felt good to be back. She missed this apartment; this comfortable place where so many memories and emotional attachments had been made. She tried to push the fact from her mind that this comfortable place was now surrounded by the same NSA tactical team that had spirited her and Manoosh back into her home like the wind. Operational security had demanded that Devon not know that Ellie and Dr. Depak were going to be here, so Devon had been quite surprised when they sailed through the front door and Ellie attempted to contain a squeal of delight. She ran at him full tilt with her arms outstretched and enveloped him with a deep and passionate kiss when they collided. That kiss spoke of much more than simple separation anxiety as they did a slow dance in a circle. She luxuriated in the warmth of his embrace and his masculine scent when their lips finally parted and she buried her face in his chest. She knew Devon had a lot of questions, he didn't even know what had happened to Chuck and Sarah. All he had known was that she was safe. But for the moment all Ellie wanted to do was rejoice in the simple pleasure of their reunion. _Their _reunion. Someone was missing. She looked up at Devon with a radiant smile, "Where's Clara?"

Manoosh was no dummy. He stayed out of the way and relaxed on the couch watching the television, leafing casually through one of Devon's fitness magazines, while Ellie and her husband spoke with hushed and emotional voices in the kitchen. Devon was preparing dinner as she held their daughter in her arms. Ellie constantly touched him every time he came within reach of her and he smiled and gave her and his daughter a kiss every time she came within range of his eager lips. Watching Sarah and her brother the last three days had strongly reinforced how much all of this meant to Ellie. What she had witnessed in them was contagious and she wanted to pass it on to her husband too. As Devon passed near her she reached up to cup his cheek with her hand and when they gazed at each other longingly, she felt a small soft hand on her own cheek. Devon's smiled grew huge as he placed his hand over the top of his daughter's, "We missed you a lot, babe," he said as he helped Clara stroke her mother's cheek, "Can you tell?"

"I sure can," she answered softly with a sigh, "I missed you too."

"Hopefully you missed me enough to withstand my cooking. I've been preparing most of my meals in the blender while you were gone," he said, with a chuckle, "Let's sit down and eat, okay?"

- VIII -

Ellie came down the stairs after bathing Clara and putting her into her crib. She had missed those simple labors of love and the time spent bonding with her daughter more than she could have ever imagined. Pausing near the top of the steps, she watched her husband, and her good friend and colleague. They were conversing at the dinner table with the remnants of a bottle of wine between them. The work they would be doing later at Castle had been invading her thoughts since before they had left Chuck and Sarah's house, but the scene before her felt happy and relaxed, and it now pushed the trauma that had happened to them only a few days ago in Castle and the work that lay ahead for them into the recesses of her mind. She watched Devon shake from that deep hearty laugh she loved so much as Manoosh told him about Casey's reaction to Chuck and Sarah's singing. Manoosh had carried on for most of the evening filling Devon in on Chuck and Sarah's condition while she had doted lovingly over Clara. Now she was going to show her colleague to the guest room and have some quality time with the man she loved.

"What the hell?" said Devon with a start as a chattering sound and commotion outside abruptly shattered the quiet in the room. Ellie froze halfway down the stairs, staring wide-eyed at the two doctors who had quickly risen from their chairs and were alternating between looking towards each other and the windows.

There was a sound of repeated impacts on the exterior wall and the tinkling of glass and a sharp hammering sound as holes started to appear in the interior walls. Devon and Manoosh rushed for the stairs as the front door began splintering from what could only have been bullet holes.

"Devon!" Ellie's mind almost completely locked up when she saw him grab his side as he stumbled toward her with shock filling his face.

The front door flew open with a bang and John Roger's along with two other armed men in black tactical clothing backed swiftly into the room, shoving the couch against the door as they slammed it shut. Agent Rogers shouted quick commands to his teammates and ran quickly to the three doctors shoving all of them with alarming strength up the staircase. They reached Clara's room and the big NSA agent pushed his charges to the back wall as he moved to cover the doorway.

"Devon's been shot!" The level of distress in Ellie's voice was bone chilling.

"This is so _not_ awesome," her husband gasped, through gritted teeth.

John Roger's spun around to see Devon clutching his lower left side with blood oozing from between his fingers while Ellie attempted to tend to his wound. He reached into his gear and pulled a trauma pad and clot pack from it tossing it wordlessly to Manoosh who was staring wide-eyed at him.

The sound of broken glass could be heard downstairs and an ear shattering blast and intense flash of light filled the air followed by more chattering from suppressed weapons fire. Then the sound of tromping boots, and all hell broke loose as several looming black clad figures burst into the room with blinding tactical lights on their weapons.

- IX -

Broken glass crunched under her medium heeled black pumps as she strode purposefully into the courtyard. The acrid smell of a burning Chevrolet Suburban and explosives hung in the air. It looked like a war zone. Her handpicked security team and several enemy agents lay dead and wounded, scattered around the apartment complex. A cacophony of activity surrounded her. Medics and Corpsmen tended to the wounded - she adjusted her stride several times to avoid stepping in puddles of blood - while an investigative team worked, tagging cartridge casings, grenade spoons, and other evidence on the ground. Her gaze fixed on the front of the apartment with the drapes hanging out of the shattered windows, the bullet pock marked walls, and the front door that was riddled with holes and hanging on one hinge. Stepping into the front room she watched two men in black with grim faces pull the zippers shut on two body bags laying on the floor. She turned her head up toward the second floor when she heard a small child crying and strode purposefully up the stairs.

Walking into the room, she watched several men and women working over a large man clothed in tactical garb lying in a pool of blood. Three other men lay dead on the floor with broad shiny stains in the carpet under them. Her eyes met one of the Medics and issued an unspoken command.

"I don't how he's still alive, but he is," said the young woman with a barely perceptible tremor in her voice.

"You make sure he stays that way. It looks like he may be our only witness to what happened here."

"Yes, ma'am," the Medic nodded grimly back.

She looked up to see a distraught young man in tactical gear trying to calm the infant girl screaming in her crib. He had a pleading look in his eyes like he was hoping she would know what to do.

Pushing the large agent aside she stared frozen for a moment at the small frightened face gazing at her with recognition in her eyes.

"Oh, Clara," she said, the sorrow creeping into her voice. She reached into the crib and picked the child up, holding her tightly to her bosom. "There, there, sweetie, it's going to be all right. Auntie Becky is here now, don't cry. We're going to find your mommy, don't you worry," she said tenderly as she clutched and rocked the child tightly in her arms and rubbed her back in an effort to comfort her.

General Diane Beckman looked up at the slightly relieved NSA man, "What do you have?" she asked pointedly, but quietly, to avoid distressing the child in her arms any further.

"It looks like Agent Rogers took everyone here to buy time ma'am. He was shot multiple times, once in the face, but he might make it." The agent pointed to a red stain in the carpet next to the crib. "Someone else was also wounded," he added grimly.

"Get that blood typed and find out whose DNA it is, now."

"Yes, ma'am, we're already on it."

Diane nodded and her eyes lingered on the crying child in her arms. A look of complete anguish filled her face. "Dammit. Why didn't I relocate them?" she asked herself, as she looked up at the ceiling and blinked. She looked around as the only sound suddenly filling the room was Clara's whimpering cries. Everyone but the men working quickly to stabilize and move the stricken Agent Rogers was silent and had their eyes fixed on her.

The general glared at one of the young agents and pointed at a diaper bag on the floor which he immediately picked up and then fell in behind her. "Get a move on people," she snapped, "Do NOT let that man die." She watched as her agents went quickly back to their appointed tasks and then looked up at a big man with silver oak leaves on his collar who had stepped into the doorway.

"Find them," she said, meeting his gaze with hard eyes. The man nodded back silently as she left the room carrying Clara with the agent carrying Clara's diaper bag following closely on her heels.

* * *

**A/N - **I think I'm getting ahead of the curve on this, at long last. I'll try to update the next one soon. Another chapter of **Sarah Versus the Farm** is also in the works. Visit my profile page for updates or harass me on Twitter. A (not so) gentle shove always helps.

Reviews are always appreciated. Those and your PM's are the only currency we writers get for doing this here, and they mean a geat deal to us.

Mac


	13. Act 12

**A/N **3/30/13 - Hey, it's an Easter egg! Another Act of Lost Years painted with fancy colors. The action is starting to pick up its pace now, so grab your body armor.

Thanks again to my betas, **somedeepmystery**, and **Steampunk Chuckster** for pointing out some really goofy writing errors, helping me make some sense of the flow of this chapter, and getting the feels of the emotions right. They know their stuff, and they are so darn fun to bounce ideas off.

**I don't own Chuck**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 12**

The four teammates were all sitting in the living room watching a movie. Chuck had given Casey the option of picking the entertainment tonight and he'd picked Casino Royale. This evening art was imitating their life, and they'd already paused the movie several times to discuss and debate the merits of various fighting techniques, the villains, the gadgetry, who was the best actor to play James Bond, and why, and of course, the Bond women. It was all so very unavoidable. It had slid down a slippery slope, ending with all of them trying to recover from the laughter… even Casey. It was only going to get worse, too, because Chuck was insisting that they watch the Peter Seller's movie with the same title next.

During the debate about actors, Cole Barker's name had come up more than once. Nikki sat and watched, fascinated, as her teammates talked about how closely the MI6 officer matched the persona of the Ian Fleming character. There was obviously a lot of admiration for the SIS man from her friends, and that made her want to meet the man behind the legend they were presenting to her. She smiled with amusement when Chuck floated the question of whether Cole Barker might have a double '0' number and Casey had answered, "without a doubt," with a less than subtle smirk on his face.

Chuck's gaze drifted over his three teammates as he reflected on how fortunate he was to have them all here with him, and especially, how very lucky he was to still be married to the one who meant everything to him. Sitting here in this house with the red door and the white picket fence, with these amazing people, it felt like a dream. He turned his head, breathing in the subtle citrus scent, and kissed the soft blonde hair on Sarah's head resting on his shoulder. Giving her a squeeze around the waist, he started to move to get up, but her grip suddenly tightened on his sweater and the hand that had been resting on his leg quickly pushed him back down. "Where do you think you're going, buster?" she asked, as she turned her face to his and narrowed her eyes playfully.

"Hungry. Thought I'd pop some popcorn for us," he said as he smiled softly and reached up to stroke the hair on the back of her head. The sight, the smell, the touch, the sensation of her under his lips; it intoxicated him like nothing ever had. The feel of her hair under his fingertips told him that what he was seeing was indeed real.

"Extra butter?" asked Sarah with a smile, after breaking him from his reverie by blowing gently in his face.

"Whatever the super-spy lady wants."

"Don't forget the celery salt," Casey said, absently, "may as well put all the bad stuff on it while you're at it."

Nikki reached over and touched the pause button on the remote when Chuck started to rise from his spot on the couch and laughed when he rolled his eyes at her with a one sided grin. "Yes, I know you've seen this a thousand times already. I just don't want to miss out on any of your color commentary," she said, as she sat back into the couch cushions.

Chuck was staring at the bag of popcorn turning lazily on the turntable in the microwave oven, listening to the kernels pop, when he felt a familiar pair of arms snake around his waist from behind. "Mmmm, that smells good," said Sarah with a sultry voice, "At least we worked out today and I can enjoy this guilty pleasure, without… you know, too much guilt."

He turned around in her arms leaning on the counter as his eyes met hers sparkling with mirth, "Which workout are you referring to?" he asked with amusement.

She snerked loudly, "Okay, maybe totally guilt free."

"Even with the extra butter," he quipped when he tipped his head to kiss her.

Just as their lips touched the microwave dinged.

They were walking from the kitchen to the living room when a loud and insistent knock came from the knocker on the red front door. Chuck started to move towards it when he heard Casey harshly whisper, "Bartowski, don't!" Chuck quickly turned his head and his eyes grew large when he saw both Casey and Nikki moving towards him with their suppressed pistols up.

"Relax," he whispered back, placatingly, "I doubt very much the bad guys are going to knock first." Taking the last couple of steps to the door Chuck leaned to look through the peephole and his world went into slow motion as he gasped and his jaw went slack. The glass bowl of popcorn in his hands fell slowly to the floor and shattered, popcorn flying everywhere. He staggered three steps back and collapsed onto the staircase, his eyes shut tightly and his breathing coming in short irregular rasps.

"Chuck!" Sarah was almost instantly at his side while Nikki shuffled quickly to the door and took a very quick look through the peephole. She lowered her pistol and gave Casey a curt but grim nod while she stepped back and he opened the door.

Standing on the front porch, surrounded by several large men dressed in black, was General Diane Beckman with a distraught look on her face. She was holding Ellie's fussing daughter, Clara, to her chest.

- II -

The UH-60M Blackhawk helicopter hover-taxied across the north ramp at Edwards Air Force Base and touched down at the end of a line of six more Blackhawks. Parked across from them were two McDonald Douglas C-17 Globemaster III transport airlift aircraft and an Air Force C-40B VIP and command transport plane. The huge concrete apron was a bustle of activity as servicemen hurried about readying the aircraft, and three charcoal gray Humvees, along with two black Chevrolet suburbans and several pallets of other gear were being loaded onto the C-17's through the rear ramps. Powerful, high intensity discharge lights, mounted on the huge aircraft hangars on the far side of the large aircraft, lit up the ramp like day.

Chuck and Sarah Bartowski stepped down from the side door of the helicopter, and linking tightly clasped hands, strode across the parking ramp, their faces covered with expressionless masks. Suspended under the interwoven grip of those tightly clasped hands was a baby carrier. Every few steps found one or the both of them glancing into it, and each time they did, a small crack would form in the mask. A crowd of people were visible lingering around several tables inside the open doors of one hangar not far from the C-40. Several familiar faces, and some not familiar, turned to watch them walk across the wide expanse of concrete. They hadn't said a word to each other the entire flight from Pasadena, mostly because of the noise level in the helicopter, but also because they'd both been inundated by a flood of emotions. Seeing all those emotion filled faces watching them sent another wave crashing over them. About halfway across the ramp they looked up at each other somberly.

"I'm so sorry, Chuck," Sarah murmured, when she saw the turmoiled expression his crumbling mask revealed. Sarah's breath hitched when he looked at her. His eyes were cloaked in a darkness she couldn't recall ever seeing before, even with so many recovered memories.

Chuck stopped in his tracks and stared down at his niece for a moment. "It was my idea for her to go home," he said, so quietly that it was almost lost in the noise of the activity on the ramp.

Sarah turned to him and took his other hand. "We'll get them back." She looked into those dark, turbulent, unfocused eyes and was struck hard by a memory. The memory of she and Chuck, and Casey, locked in the back of an armored prisoner transport vehicle and the heartbreaking way he had almost fallen apart after watching Daniel Shaw shoot his father. Her temper flared as she saw the same tragic despair written on his face now, and she gripped his hands harder, demanding his attention, "You _listen_ to me, Chuck," she said, with anger coloring her voice, "don't you _dare _go there. We _will _get your sister and Devon back. Clara is _not _going to be an orphan, do you hear me?"

She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb as his surprised eyes slowly narrowed and refocused on hers with a re-found determination, then he subtly nodded his accession. "You're amazing, you know that? I've never met anyone stronger or more determined than you."

"You're pretty amazing yourself, Chuck. You know what you need to do, I've seen you do it before. Now let's do it again."

Three figures watched them closely from across the ramp. "Is he going to be okay?" asked General Beckman, looking to John Casey and Nikki Lawson, as they stood under the slowly turning rotor blades of the Blackhawk.

"He'll be fine." Casey turned to meet her gaze. "Don't forget what he did to Shaw after that SOB killed his father and tried to take over the CIA."

The General nodded curtly, "I remember, and you could be right, but he's always been too emotional. It's a liability," she said, with a scowl.

"Unmg, Don't be too sure. He sure knows how to channel those emotions."

"That's what makes him so effective," commented Nikki, in firm agreement.

"I suppose," Diane Beckmen said, with a sharp shake of her head, "but I'll never pretend to understand it." Sometimes trying to understand Chuck Bartowski was like trying to understand why gravity held you firmly to the earth.

They watched Chuck and Sarah exchange a chaste kiss out on the middle of the ramp, and then continue to walk towards the open hangar.

"Let's get this show on the road," said Diane Beckman, gruffly, as she started to walk briskly toward the hangar with Nikki and Casey flanking her a half step behind.

When Chuck and Sarah approached the larger open hangar, Morgan and Alex walked away from the crowd around the table, and met them a short distance outside the doors. For a few seconds, no words were exchanged, but then they both stepped forward to give the Bartowskis heart felt hugs. Morgan gripped his friend fiercely and Chuck returned the embrace with one arm because he and Sarah were still holding the baby carrier suspended between them.

"We'll get Ellie and Awesome back, Chuck. Don't you worry about that. This will not stand," said Morgan, quietly into his best friend's ear, "it will not stand." He pushed back to hold Chuck by the arms, giving him a strong but sympathetic look in the eyes. It was a pretty amazing departure from the Morgan of old. Chuck realized in this moment just how far his short, bearded friend had come.

Chuck returned his friends intense gaze with a grim smile, "I know, buddy, we'll get them back. Thanks for being here for us."

Morgan and Alex linked together with their arms over each other's shoulders as they continued to hold Chuck and Sarah's hands, forming the four of them and Clara into a tight circle. "About that, Chuck," said Morgan tentatively, "Are you sure you want us to stay here? We want to help."

"You _can_ help, Morgan," replied Sarah, softly, but unyieldingly, "By staying here. We need you to oversee the analysts and to hold down the fort at the offices. We want you to be ready to help us on a second's notice in case we need the capabilities only Carmichael Industries can provide."

"Sarah's right, Morg," said Chuck, with a somber conviction, "The Intersect isn't the end all, be all in this, or in any other situation. We need to work as a team. I need you here, and I need you to make sure we have the edge we're going to need to get Ellie and Devon and Manoosh back. I need my team to be where they can do the most good."

Morgan's intense gaze darted back and forth between Chuck and Sarah. His mouth drew into a line and he nodded curtly as his eyes fell to the ground in front of him, "Okay, we'll do it, Chuck. But what about Clara?" he asked, as he looked into the baby carrier, "We can take care of her if you want, right Alex?" Morgan looked earnestly at his girlfriend. She would soon to be his fiance, if only he could work up the nerve to ask. He knew it was inevitable, maybe taking care of Clara was the push he needed.

"Yes! We can do that," replied Alex with a wistful smile that spoke of heartbreak, love, and an undying commitment all in an instant. She let her gaze travel to Chuck and then Sarah with the question already showing in her eyes as they fell on Clara, "Do you want us to take care of Clara? We want to, Chuck."

Chuck looked up from his niece, exchanging a quick look with Sarah, and sighed, "No, Alex, we do appreciate it, but we want to keep Clara with us. It's our responsibility to protect her now, and we want her close. And when we get Ellie back I want her to be with her daughter again right away. No matter what Ellie's current situation is, I'm sure she's worried sick about Clara."

"Agent Grimes," an all too familiar voice said brusquely, not far from them.

They all looked up from Clara, following the sound of the voice, to see General Beckman standing a short distance away, behind Chuck and Sarah. She'd apparently been standing there listening to most of the conversation. "I have an assignment for you Agent Grimes. It's one more reason why we need to have you here. Let's talk," she said, with her typical commanding voice, walking out toward the airplanes on the ramp.

Morgan shot a look of intense curiosity at his best friend, which Chuck returned with a little shrug and a quick tilt of his head in the General's direction. The breaded man didn't need any more prompting, and hustled with quick steps, to follow Diane Beckman out onto the concrete expanse.

Alex's eyes followed him as he hurried away then came back up to meet Chuck and Sarah's, with an expression that, in no uncertain terms, said she wanted some answers, but she held her tongue. She knew that now was not the time to be asking questions, considering the General wanted to talk to her boyfriend in private.

Then Casey and Gertrude Verbanski came walking up. To both Chuck and Sarah's surprise they were holding hands, and Casey put his arm other arm around his daughter's shoulders. "The flight crews are ready Bartowski, we need to get going," said Casey, with his hardened agent voice. His stern voice seemed to be in stark contrast with his body language, as he held on to the two most important women in his life. "Beckman wanted me to tell you we'll have a briefing and a planning meeting ninety minutes after we're airborne."

"Fine, Casey. Then, let's get this bunch on board." Chuck's gaze came up from their clasped hands to fall on Gertrude. "John told us what you did at the Buy More. How you were the one who backed up Nikki and him, and that you saw us being put on that helicopter. I hate to think what might have happened if you hadn't seen that. Thank you, Gertrude. I hear I also owe you a new car," he said, sheepishly, trying to force a smile.

"That's all right, Chuck," said Gertrude smiling thinly at him, "the car's not important. Let's go get your sister back, okay?"

"Okay. Let's do it. I'm glad you're with us," he nodded grimly.

"I am too, and don't you worry, Chuck, we'll get all of them back."

Casey grunted in affirmation, "And when we get back, you and I, we're gonna be talkin' about a new Vic for me, Bartowski." When his comment failed to get a snide response from his friend or lighten the mood any, he gave Sarah a sharp look of concern. "Hmng, I'll round everyone up. Go ahead and get aboard, we'll be right behind you."

"C'mon, honey," said Sarah, looking at her nerd with veiled worry, "Let's get Clara aboard and get settled. It's going to be a long flight."

"Chuck?" They turned to see Alex looking at them with distress written all over her face again. "If you need _anything, _we're here for you."

"Thanks, Alex, we'll stay in touch."

- III -

A restless Clara had finally calmed down and fallen asleep on the helicopter ride from Burbank to the Air Force base. She was now dead to the world in her car seat/carrier secured in the plush, leather upholstered executive seating across from them. Sarah gazed at her, marveling at how resilient babies could be even when their world had been turned upside down. Clara reminded her so much of the way Molly had reacted when she tried to take care of her, before leaving the infant with her mother. Fortunately, these little ones didn't fully comprehend the situation they were in. Clara only understood that her mother and father weren't with her, but she was quickly settling into the care they were now providing. Ellie and Devon's daughter was fairing much better than her own husband. Chuck was being stoic at the moment, but he'd been swinging back and forth from his current state to a desperate depression.

Sarah knew he felt responsible for what had happened to his sister. She did too. Neither of them felt that Ellie would have ever been involved with this at all if not for the Intersect their father had helped to create and the problems it had caused for both of them, especially what it had done to her. Ellie had been driven profoundly by what had happened to Sarah. Even before her memories had been restored, Sarah had come to realize how much Chuck's sister loved her. But now that she had the bulk of those memories back. Much like what Morgan had experienced, they were discovering there were still small gaps. And the odds were, that neither she or Morgan would ever get any of those lost memories back, and they were likely lost forever. But Sarah now knew that the feelings she and Ellie shared for one another were incredibly deep. They'd built a friendship over the years she never could have imagined in her previous life before becoming her husband's handler. She was now fighting the same personal battles over her sister's abduction too.

Sarah gave their interlinked fingers a squeeze, catching Chuck's eye. Over the last few weeks they'd discovered a way to say so much to each other without saying a word. When they touched it was like the words they were thinking and every emotion they were experiencing flowed like a river between them. Only now the river of emotion she felt flowing from Chuck was a raging torrent of whitewater. She could barely hang on as she tried to maintain her center. She couldn't let go, however, because she knew the placid waters she was working so hard to maintain were one of the things keeping her Chuck from being carried away by the flood. Her husband's emotional state had become so severe she could feel the connection between them fluttering in and out like a distant radio station. She'd always known Chuck was an emotional person, and that he'd often channeled those emotions in amazing ways when he had them under control. She knew she had to do something to get him to channel them now, even if it meant getting tough with him and becoming his old handler again.

"Breathe, sweetheart," she said, turning to him and placing her other hand on his cheek, "Please, Chuck, I need you to focus on a solution and not dwell on things we can't control. I need my Chuck, the one who can always build an amazing plan from the chaos. Please don't lose yourself in this, because we all need you."

He looked back at her, trying to cover his fears with a calm exterior, but his words gave him away. "I'm trying Sarah, but it's my sister. It's Ellie, the person who raised me and brought me through all those tough times in one piece...more or less," he added with a thin smile. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost her, if they kill-"

The hard expression that suddenly grew on his wife's face broke his words off like a dry branch. "Dammit, Chuck, listen to me! You need to push that kind of negative thinking from your mind. And don't try to tell me those thoughts aren't there, ruling over you right now, I can feel them! And they're not doing either of us any good! We know where she is, and where they are taking her. I need you to do what you do best, to focus on a plan to save her, and Devon, and Manoosh. Do it, Chuck! Stop spiraling!"

Chuck stared wide-eyed at her for a moment, then glanced at Clara, thankful that Sarah's outburst hadn't awoken her. But then he could feel eyes on him and looked around the cabin to see several of his friends and colleagues watching him closely.

"Listen to me Chuck, and not just my words. Feel the inner calm I'm trying to share with you. We need calm, cool, and collected Charles Carmichael, _right now_," Sarah said, with steel in her voice. "Ellie needs Charles right now; the focused CIA agent who has proven he can do _anything_."

"I know, Sarah, I _can _feel it," Chuck nodded grimly, "I know what you're trying to do, and I'm trying-"

"There is no try, Chuck, only do. Do, or do not."

That snapped him out of it. Chuck snorted a laugh as a tight smile crossed his face, "That's not exactly how the line goes, but you and Yoda are right."

"Well, excuse me if my pop culture nerdism's aren't spot on, I don't exactly make it my mission to memorize that stuff like you do," Sarah said with a soft smile that seemed a bit out of place on her hardened features. "Chuck, if yelling at you is what it's going to take to get your attention, I'm going to do it," she warned.

"Understood. Yoda never yelled at Luke...well, at least not like you just did, but it's okay. I'm listening now."

"Good."

"Oh, and for the record, the proper line from Yoda is in the Interesct."

Sarah's only response was an exasperated smile, as she dropped her chin and raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse, me, Agents Carmichael?" They looked up to see an Air Force tech Sergeant in a steward's uniform standing over them. "The General wanted me to tell you she's expecting you in the command cabin for a briefing in five minutes. I'll keep an eye on the baby for you while you're in there."

Chuck and Sarah glanced at Clara and nodded in unison followed by a "Thank you" in chorus. Then they turned to each other and smiled from the mutual knowledge that they were once again at least somewhat in sync.

- IV -

They stepped into a roomy - by aircraft standards - command cabin at the rear of the plane to see Diane Beckman, John Casey and Nikki Lawson already sitting around the small conference table in front of the General's desk. All three people around the table were looking at them appraisingly, but the General's scrutinizing was particularly intense.

"I just got off a long conference call with the White House," said Diane with tension in her voice, "Have a seat. You're probably going to want to be sitting down for this."

Sarah felt Chuck's hand grip hers tightly as he turned to her, his face darkening. She shot him a sharp look of warning, and gripped his hand with almost bone crushing force, as she pulled him to the table.

The General drew her hand over her angry face as they settled in their chairs. "There's no delicate way to put this, so I'm going to shoot straight," she said, the muscles in her jaw twitching, "Way too damn many people are now read into this program as a result of this fiasco. The plane we think has your sister aboard left Nova Scotia about an hour ago. The Canadian SAS barely missed them. The President's National Security Adviser wants to contain this. He wants to shoot the plane down."

"NO!" Chuck shot from his seat, his hands slamming on the table in front of him. "General, if they do this, there will be hell to pay! You'll have to lock me away in a bunker just to protect the people you work for!"

"SIT. DOWN. CHUCK," the General exclaimed, glaring at him.

"_Dammit," _Sarah said softly, as her husband slowly took his seat, "They'll have to throw both of us into a bunker...or worse."

"Calm down, both of you. Do you really think I would allow that to happen? The fate of the entire program and everyone in it is hanging by a thread because of this." Diane glared at them, her eyes flickering with anger as she read their expressions. "Don't go there, either of you. Ellie means a lot to me too, as well as Dr. Depak...on a _personal _level." Her expression softened, showing a weariness from the days events, "I'm not _all _about the mission, you know; at least, not any more. A certain emotional nerd taught me there was more to all of this than just the mission."

"What about the greater good?" Sarah asked quietly, her eyes fixed on her and Chuck's intertwined hands on the table between them.

"The greater good doesn't mean squat if I can't protect the people most capable of looking out for it," the General shot back.

Casey grunted in what sounded like affirmation.

"So they're not going to shoot them down," said Nikki speculatively.

"No. I've been assured by the President that it won't happen. His advisers I don't trust, but him..." Diane took a deep breath, "We're being given a chance to make a rescue, but a SEAL team has been assigned to this operation with orders to sterilize if we fail."

"Sterilize," Chuck whispered. "That sounds bad for all of us."

"A suicide mission," added Sarah, grimly, "One of our specialties."

Casey grunted again, "I'd rather suicide the other guys."

Diane Beckman turned in her seat and looked rather pointedly at Chuck. "We need a plan, Chuck. One of those out-of-the-box plans only you can come up with."

This time Chuck grunted, causing the corner of Casey's mouth to turn up. The Colonel's smile, however, was short lived, when he observed his friend's gradually, darkening, and brooding demeanor. Chuck's breathing started to become shallow and his eyes unfocused; it was becoming obvious he was on the verge of shutting down. "Bartowski," Casey started to growl, "don't you go-"

Sarah's eyes went wide and she gripped her husband's hand fiercely, as the connection between them suddenly severed with a jolt. "General, can _Chuck_ and I have some privacy?" Sarah asked, with alarm, cutting Casey off with a glare. "We'll get you your plan, but I need some time alone with my husband," she said turning her hard eyes to him. "We need to..._talk."_

The General looked over at Sarah inquisitively, studying her hardened features, then her mouth turned up, ever so slightly, and she looked at her Rolex. "We're going to be landing at Andrews in about two and a half hours to refuel. Then we'll have about another eight and a half hours to our CIA station in Pardubice, maybe sooner, _if _we have a favorable tailwind and we don't have to stop at RAF Mildenhall to refuel a second time." The General walked to her desk and picked up her briefcase and a notebook computer, before turning back to look Sarah in the eye with a knowing expression on her face. "You can have this cabin until two hours after we take off from Andrews, then I'm going to need it back. Would you like me to look after Clara for you?"

"Yes, ma'am, we'd appreciate that very much. Thank you for offering," Sarah said evenly, as she turned her gaze to her silent and bewildered husband.

"Fine, the cabin is yours. Colonel, Commander, let's go up front to check on that darling little girl, and talk."

"Now you've _really_ stepped in it, Bartowski," Casey mumbled, out of the corner of his mouth to Chuck, as he walked by.

The door latched. "Sarah-"

"_Shut it, _Chuck." Sarah said, snapping the consonants in his name off sharply. She took his wrist with an iron grip and pulled him through the cabin, and then through a door behind the General's desk. They stepped into the rear berth and Sarah kicked the door shut with her foot as they went in. It was a private sleeping quarters for the officer in command, or other VIP's on a given flight, complete with a full sized bed and a private bath with a shower stall. The First Lady had traveled on an airplane just like this one, if not this very plane. Sarah stopped abruptly next to the bed, and tilted her head to the side with narrowing eyes as she watched her husband's eyes go wide from...fear?

"Strip," she said, brusquely.

"Sarah, wha-?"

"I said strip, _Chuck_. NOW." When he faltered she reached for his belt and quickly unbuckled it, then yanked it from his jeans and threw it to the floor. "Don't make me say it again, Chuck," she said, with angry conviction.

"Yes, ma'am," Chuck said, with a gulp. He started to fumble with the button on his pants, but froze, watching dumbstruck as his wife disrobed in front of him with blinding speed, stark naked in mere seconds. Then she reached for his pants, aggressively finished his task, and yanked them, and his boxer shorts, down to his ankles in one swift motion before shoving him backward onto the bed. In seconds, his Chuck Taylor's and socks were gone too, along with his pants, thrown across the small room with his belt. She pulled his v-neck sweater quickly off of him and roughly pulled his black t-shirt over his head as well.

Sarah then pushed Chuck back onto the bed and jumped onto him, pinning him with a maneuver that would have made an Olympic level wrestler proud. "_Sarah," _Chuck croaked, "If the General finds out-"

"Relax, Chuck. Breathe," she said as she stretched out on top of him, gripped both of his hands, and pushed their arms outstretched over their heads, maintaining contact over every square inch of his skin that she could. "Breathe, Chuck, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Slowly. Along with me." Their fingers intertwined and she gripped the sides of his legs with her thighs, in firm contact with him all the way to her toes, her eyes locked on his. "That's it, right along with me. Feel my heartbeat. In through the nose. Slowly. Hold it for a count of four, then slowly back out. Breathe." They laid there as Sarah softly whispered her mantra. After a few minutes they started to fall into a gentle synchronized cadence.

"Feel my heartbeat, sweetheart, let them match," she breathed, gazing into his eyes. "That's it. Calm. Serene. Find your center. It's just us. Nothing else matters right now. It's just us."

"Just us," he repeated, with unexpected calm in his voice.

"That's right." Sarah laid a soft kiss onto his lips, "It's just us, the rest of the world can wait. Find your center, Chuck."

"Center," he breathed back, with a sigh.

"Yes." She pushed his hands together over his head and gripped them both with one hand as her other hand found its way between them and spread over the center of his chest. "Right here, Chuck. It's right here. Focus on it. Breathe."

"Center."

"Yes. Right with me, sweetheart, one with me."

After a few more minutes passed she could feel the gentle beating of his heart start to fall into rhythm with hers. From the look in his eye, as they gazed at each other, she could tell he felt it too. They were sharing that amazing connection again. Time was slipping away from them anew.

Sarah lowered her lips to his ear, and her hand came back up, running her spread fingers through his hair with gentle strokes, as they nuzzled each other's cheek, softly breathing into one another's ear. She continued to quietly whisper her mantra. Soon they shared airy kisses on the cheek, and then breezy kisses on the lips. They hardly noticed when the wheels set down on the runway at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.

General Beckman looked again at her Rolex. They were half an hour late. She glanced up from her watch to see John Casey holding her gaze with a almost imperceptible smirk, and rolled her eyes with a thin smile.

"You want me to roust them?" Casey volunteered with a snort.

"No, that won't be necessary. We'll give them a few more minutes," she said, without looking up from her Kindle.

"Oh, c'mon, it would be my pleasure," Casey said, his grin becoming quite real, as he started to rise from his seat.

"Ah, ah. No way, buster. I'll do it," said Nikki leaning forward to push him back into his seat with her free hand. "Here, make yourself useful."

"Oh no. No way," he huffed as Nikki set the sleeping Clara in his lap. "I don't even know what to do with this thing."

"She's not a thing, Colonel, she's a beautiful little girl," the General said with an admonishing tone.

Gertrude leaned over to stroke the baby's smooth and chubby fingers, "Maybe you should get used to the idea," she whispered in his ear.

"Oh, good Lord," Casey choked, staring at his girlfriend, turning beet red.

"Haha. Now that was definitely worth the price of admission to see," Nikki said, as she stepped toward the aisle. She started to walk down the passage to the command cabin when she stopped short. The door to the cabin had opened, and Chuck and Sarah had come out, with easy smiles on their faces holding hands. They strode up to the group as Nikki gave the General a little nudge to get her attention.

"General, we have a plan," Chuck said confidently, "We thin- Holy unexpected babysitters, Batman, will you look at _that_."

"One more word, Chuck, and you're a dead Intersect," growled John Casey.

- V -

Eleanor Bartowski-Woodcomb slowly came to consciousness in a tranquilized daze. She was strapped to a gurney and being lowered from the side door of a large private jet. Panic overcame her and she jerked under the straps as the memory of what had happened in their apartment rushed back into her mind. _Devon! Oh, my, God, Devon! _The thought made her swiftly lucid again as she swung her head quickly back and forth trying to take in her surroundings. They were on a large airport ramp, green grass and trees visible in the distance. The sun was sitting well above the horizon, in a sky partially filled with clouds. She wasn't absolutely sure if it was morning or afternoon, but the almost warm temperature of the breeze on her face made her think it was later in the day. When her eyes fell on a gurney next to her she froze. Dr. Depak was strapped to it, still very obviously unconscious. She raised her head and looked over her feet. They were being wheeled towards two boxy ambulances with unrecognizable markings on them. Then she saw the third gurney ahead of them with an IV bag hanging over it, and the top of her husband's unmistakable head of hair. "Devon!"

Two hands grabbed her head roughly and shoved it back down onto the thin pillow on the gurney. She looked up shocked, into the face of a very large man dressed in black with jet black hair and hard chiseled features. "That's right Dr. Woodcomb, your husband is still alive. And the only way he is going to stay that way is if you cooperate with us fully."

Ellie stared up at the hard eyes of Allen Preston for a moment and her blood turned to ice water in her veins, "What about my daughter," she asked in a near panic, "What about Clara? Where's my daughter?"

"You won't be seeing your daughter again, Doctor. Not unless you do everything you're told, and even then, you may not recognize her anymore," the Fulcrum operative said with vicious smirk.

- VI -

"I'd call this place pretty if I didn't know what it was once for," observed Chuck, as they strode across the large concrete ramp, the warm colored light of the setting sun on their faces, painting an idyllic scene of the surrounding panorama. Spread out around them were farm fields, trees, and green grass. In front of them were several earth covered structures also covered with green grass and surrounded by trees. Concrete taxiways led up to very formidable looking blast doors on the front of each large building.

"Yeah, it's a little hard to believe this place had a nuclear bullseye on it at one time," Sarah agreed, as she gripped his hand firmly.

The Pardubice airport had been a Soviet bloc air force base at one time, housing a fighter and theater nuclear attack squadron. The structures they were walking toward were heavily hardened aircraft hangars, linked to a nearby underground command center. The verdant green landscaping was designed to help hide its once destructive purpose. But the airport was now a public facility and many of the hardened hangars were now privately owned by business' and quazi-government entities. The hangar and squadron command building they were walking toward was a combined CIA/SIS sub-station now, still linked by an underground road to the main command center, deeply buried a half klick away. General Beckman and John Casey had gotten off the plane ahead of them with the general's security team and were already inside.

As they walked to an entrance of the facility that was masked by concrete and earthen berms, several people emerged and began to walk toward them. They recognized to two of them immediately. Chuck wasn't too surprised to see one of them, Cole Barker was after all working predominately in Europe, but his jaw almost hit the concrete apron when his eyes met those of his mother. "What the hell?" he turned, asking Sarah, "What is she doing here? And _how _did she get here before us?"

"Those are very good questions," his wife softly muttered as they approached the fit looking older woman wearing a black leather trenchcoat. Sarah almost couldn't stifle a laugh, noticing how closely Nikki and Mary were dressed, in similar black turtleneck sweaters, and tall black leather boots. The only difference in their fashion statements was that Nikki's coat was a shorter mid-hip cut and more tightly tailored to her figure.

Chuck handed the baby carrier to Sarah and took his mother, Mary, up into an easy embrace, "Mom, what are you doing here?" he asked with unmasked curiosity and a little incredulity.

"I'm here for the same reasons you are, Charles," she said, pushing him back to arm's length, gripping his hands, with hard eyes locked on his, "I'm going to help you get your sister back."

He looked at her agape for a second, "Well, yeah. I understand. But how did you get here ahead of us?"

"I was already in Europe, not far from here."

"Wha-? What are you doing in Europe?"

"It's a long story, Chuck, it'll have to wait. Hello, Sarah," said Mary, turning her attention to the blonde spy and the little girl she was holding, "I hear you're pretty much back to your old self again...with a few enhancements," she added quietly, with a wry smile.

Chuck and Sarah exchanged a wary glance at each other, "Now isn't the time our place to discuss this, mom," said Chuck, from the corner of his mouth.

"You're right. We should get inside." Mary's gaze fell onto her granddaughter. "May I?" she asked Sarah.

"Of course, she needs familiar people and things right now," replied Sarah as Mary picked Clara up from the carrier and started to dote over her.

"Hello, Sarah, Chuck. May I take that off your hands?" asked Cole Barker, pointing to the empty baby carrier.

"Thank you." Sarah handed him the carrier, "You always were the gentleman, Cole."

"I try. But it seems someone always had me beat in that department," he said cryptically, giving her and Chuck a wry smile. "Let me introduce our hosts, CIA Station Chief, Frank Osborn, and his SIS counterpart, my boss, Thomas Claire."

The two, as yet, quiet gentleman stepped forward to exchange brief greetings and handshakes with Chuck, Sarah and the rest of the, also quiet, members of Team Bartowski, who'd gathered on the ramp.

"I'm afraid Mrs. Bartowski is correct, we should be getting inside," said Thomas Claire, with a very proper London accent. "Eyes and ears everywhere, you know. Not that we can keep much of this hush, hush, anyway," he added, gesturing at the Air Force 737 on the ramp.

Inside the building, past a pair of very large open blast doors, and a more normal looking glass entry door, was a very modern looking office space with a central control area and several glassed in offices and conference rooms. The team was ushered into the largest of the conference rooms and the blinds were drawn closed with a push of a button when they entered. Three extremely fit looking men were already sitting at table at the far end going over something on a notebook computer.

All three men stood when Chuck, Sarah, and the rest of their immediate team walked into the room. The dark bearded man in the center stepped forward with his hand extended, "Chief Carmichael, Special Agent Carmichael, it's a pleasure to finally meet you. Captain Steven Messner, DEVGRU. We've been assigned by the Joint Chiefs and SOCOM to back you up. These are my squadron leaders, Commander Smith, Gold Squadron, assault, and Commander Jones, Black Squadron, recon."

Chuck smiled at the cover names and accepted the man's hand, shaking it warmly, even though they both knew what the SEAL team's role might turn out to be on this mission if things went wrong. "The pleasure's all mine, Captain. It's very nice to meet one of the guys who live and work on the pointy end every day."

"Thank you sir, but with all due respect, your exploits and record of successes speak for themselves," said the Navy Captain, evenly, "I'm not at all pleased about the reason we were ordered to be here."

Chuck pursed his lips with a veiled yet slightly somber expression, "Yeah, well we're going to do our damndest to prevent you from having to carry out that assignment. I hope you understand, and will give us the opportunity to, and maybe a little help with pulling this off?"

"I understand perfectly, Chief. We'll do what we can to help get all of us out of this in one piece. Though I'm not clear why they didn't assign this job to my team to begin with."

"Let's just say there are unusual extenuating circumstances and leave it at that. I wish we could tell you more."

"We hear that a lot, Chief. Not the first time we've been given a mission without all the whys and wherefores. We've learned to live with it," the bearded man said with a thin smile. "General Beckman said you wanted to give us a full briefing on the plan you've devised. Shall we have a seat and get started?"

"By all means, let's get to it. We need to move very quickly on this," replied Chuck, exchanging a glance with Sarah, who was quietly studying the three Navy officers.

The Navy man caught the look between the two married CIA officers and exchanged a brief look of curiosity with his colleagues. "Well as you've already been informed our guys have started acting on the data you've mined, and begun recon. We're getting your cover gear together now and assessing the opposition..."

- VII -

The man looked like he was in very bad shape, but the medical staff said by some miracle he was going to pull through. His attending physician said a miracle had nothing to do with it, that he was simply as tough as nails. In fact he was so tough he was already off his ventilator. The surgeons were royally pissed about that because they wanted to keep Agent John Rogers sedated for at least another twelve hours. Morgan Grimes stared through the window into the NSA agent's room. Only one of the apparently sleeping man's eyes showed because of a bandage that covered half his face from where a bullet had entered his left cheek and exited in front of his ear after shattering two of his upper teeth. As Morgan watched him, trying to get up the nerve to enter the room, the NSA man's uncovered eye opened and met his gaze with surprising intensity. They watched each other for a moment, and then Roger's raised his hand, curling his fingers - one of which had a pulse clip on it - toward his palm, beckoning him into the room.

Special Agent Grimes shuffled into the room under the NSA agent's unwavering gaze. "Hey," he said, "glad to see you're still with us."

"They're gone aren't they?" the big man slurred, with pain in his voice."

"Yeah," Morgan answered, with a sigh, "but we know where they were taken."

"Damn." Roger's gaze turned to the ceiling, "We let them down."

Morgan shook his head emphatically, "No," he said with conviction "You did everything you could under the circumstances, and this isn't over yet. We need your help, John. Tell me all you can about what happened."

- VIII -

"I can't believe our dumb luck that the bad guys are holed up in an almost identical facility," said Sarah, as their group stood in front of a very large blast door big enough to accept a medium sized truck.

"I suppose," replied Chuck, thoughtfully as he studied the door, "but these places look formidable. If they manage to get these doors shut before we get in..."

"We have to be sneaky, Chucky. We'll make sure they never knew what hit them. And when they finally do, it will way too late."

Sarah looked at Carina Miller with sidelong smirk, "No improvisation on this one, Carina."

"Who? Me?" Carina scoffed, "I have no idea what you're talking about. But, you know, sometimes being sneaky means you do have to think on your feet."

"I think if we have to improvise while we're being sneaky, we may already be screwed," said Zondra Rizzo, with a short cynical laugh.

"Oh, ye of little faith," retorted Carina with an evil smile, "Sometimes maintaining the element of surprise means you have to be ready to improvise."

"Uh huh, listen to you wax poetic, Ms. Bull in the China Shop," retorted Zondra, her laugh taking a sarcastic turn.

The seven of them, Chuck, Sarah, Mary, Nikki, Carina, Zondra, and Cole, were standing at the entrance to a vehicle tunnel almost a quarter of a mile long. It was straight, with very few places to hide, except for some, now unused, nuclear munitions bunkers about a third of the way down the tunnel, ventilation shafts in the walls in a few places, and square reinforced concrete columns every fifty feet or so along the walls. At the other end of the tunnel was another huge blast door like this one that could potentially block the entrance to the command center where they suspected Ellie, Devon, and Manoosh were being held. It had been decided that entering through the command center entrance was a no go, because it was too heavily fortified with a very large contingent of guards watching it, both inside and out. This tunnel, leading from the hangar complex to the command center, was the weakest point, but it was long, and the approach was very exposed.

"We'll need a couple of vehicles for this to work," observed Cole Barker.

"The SEAL recon team says they've been seeing a lot of trucks going in and out," replied Nikki, as she stared down the tunnel. "We should be able to steal one or two, and as long as these uniforms are a good match we should blend in."

Everyone but Mary was wearing a green tactical uniform and a ballistic vest that matched what the opposition was wearing. The SEALS had taken some amazingly clear and detailed video of the Fulcrum agents and their security force. Chuck glanced at his mom. For some reason she was insisting on staying with analyst Julie Peterson at the CIA substation. He'd been fully expecting an argument from her about going along but it hadn't happened.

"Are you sure your leg is okay, Nikki? If we have to run down this tunnel..." Chuck let his voice trail off as he looked at her and saw her determined eyes.

"Yeah, boss, don't you worry about me. I'll be fine."

"Well, we all know what our assignments are, but let's go over them again while we take a walk down this tunnel and review the layout of the command center," said Chuck, deep in thought, "I sure don't want anyone to get lost in this maze with armed bad guys chasing us around, Inter-special intel, or not."

- IX -

"Five minutes," The detached voice said over their helmet headphones.

The six operatives all held up a thumb, "Roger that," said Chuck into the mic inside his oxygen mask. He reached over, giving his wife's knee a squeeze, and Sarah dropped her mask for a second, showing him a toothy grin, and mouthing 'I love you.'

Carina and Zondra who had been watching the display both shook their heads, and Carina made a very exaggerated roll of her eyes that included a flip of her head to the side. "She is so hopelessly lost, Chucky," Carina said for the whole cabin to hear, "We should all be so lucky."

Sarah lowered her oxygen mask again to stick her tongue out at her good friend.

"I can't believe that group is going in ahead of us," one of the Navy SEAL's yelled, his mask lowered, to the guy sitting next to him.

"I guess you haven't heard the rumors about them, eh?" his partner yelled back.

"No! What rumors?! I thought I was the source of all the juiciest gossip! What have _they_ done?!"

"Oh, only saved entire cities from nuclear destruction! Minor stuff like that!"

"Oh, bullshit! You are so full of it, Beavers."

"Just sayin'! I'll reserve judgment until I see them jump off the ramp!"

"Twenty bucks says it looks like a cluster fuck!"

"You're on, Chief," exclaimed the very large special forces operator, with a fist bump.

"Two minutes, Sir." The rear ramp on the C-130 aircraft started to lower, revealing a gray horizon line with a dark, star filled, sky above it, and the cabin suddenly became very chilly as a cold breeze whipped around them.

"Right. It's showtime," said Chuck, as he stood up from the web seat and offered Sarah his hand, "I wish Casey could have heard me say that."

"I'm sure he'll hear about it from someone," replied Sarah, as she stood up with a smile that only showed through the goggles covering her eyes. She shook her head toward the cabin at the eighteen Navy SEALs sitting in web seats behind them.

"Oh. Heh, right," replied Chuck, "Shall we?" he asked, with a slight bow gesturing towards the ramp.

"Why, certainly. I've always wanted to jump out of a plane with you, Charles Carmichael."

"Good, God, I think I'm going to be sick," Carina deadpanned as she walked aft.

The six agents stood at the edge of the ramp and took a brief look out.

"Looks like the right part of town," quipped Cole.

"Try not to wake any of the neighbors, okay?" asked Nikki, as she gave him a wink.

"Quiet as a mouse," said the SIS agent with a wry smile.

"Shit, that bunch is worse than us," an unidentified SEAL said over the circuit.

"Twenty seconds!"

"I expect a kiss after we land," Sarah said saucily.

"You really thought you had to ask?"

"Ten seconds!"

"Who's going to kiss me when _I _land?" asked Carina as she moved the last half step toward the edge.

Eighteen Navy SEALs started to rise from their seats with their hands raised.

Sarah took Chuck up in an embrace and touched her oxygen mask to his, winking at him and rolling her eyes toward the large group of standing Navy operators.

"GO!" exclaimed the Jumpmaster sharply, and six agents nonchalantly tipped over the edge of the ramp, all at once, from twenty thousand feet. Two of them were in a tight embrace.

"Dayam! You owe me twenty bucks, Chief!"

"I think I know where I'm applying for work when I get done with this gig," said another anonymous SEAL, as several of them moved towards the ramp to watch the falling agents.

They opened their square parachutes at 4,000 feet and glided toward the earth covered hangar complex on the south end of the Hradec Kralove airport below them. The layout was very similar to the one at Pardubice, the blockhouse entrance to the command center and guardpost visible next the airport ramp about five hundred yards away.

"I've got the one on the right, you take the one by the door," said Sarah, as they maneuvered behind the guards on and around the hangar they were going to enter.

"Right. I mean left... the one by the door."

"You goof. Time to get serious, Chuck."

"I _was _serious. Pardon my excitement. This is like only the sixth time I've done this."

"Well, obviously you're not talking about sex," said Nikki with a laugh that sounded almost macabre over the encrypted radio circuit, "I'm angling for the top of the hangar."

"Roger, that, Nikki."

"We really need to find some more privacy, Chuck."

"Sorry, I missed that honey, I was flashing."

"Never mind."

Sarah's boot contacted the guard's left temple with a crack as she flared the square chute to land. She landed light on her feet as the guard crumpled lifelessly to the grass. "Chuck, status!"

"One down, an indeterminate number to go. How are you?"

"He's down for the count. Nikki?"

"Overwatch is secure, no Tangos."

"Okay. Cleanup," said Sarah, as she pulled off her helmet and oxygen mask and donned her cap. "We'll rally at the entrance in thirty. Switching to ear piece. Team two."

"We're down and secure," replied Cole, "You definitely put me with the right ladies."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, mate," Carina snarked, with a cockney accent.

"Entrance secure," stated Zondra, professionally, "Standing by."

"So far, so good," whispered Sarah, as she scrambled down the slope of the hangar roof toward her husband.

Just as she reached the doorway the heavy armored door creaked open and light spilled out into the darkness. As the Fulcrum operative stepped through the doorway with his weapon, an FN P90 at ready low, Chuck reached out from the side and yanked the gun forward by the attached suppressor with a snap of the sling, while Sarah flung an elbow into the enemy agents advancing throat. Chuck's left foot shot forward, sweeping the guards feet out from under him, as Sarah drove her other hand into his chest and down. The guard's head hit the concrete with a sickening smack, while Chuck drew his tranq gun, and fired twice. Sarah looked at Chuck wide-eyed as a second enemy operative fell with a clatter down the expanded metal steps into the interior of the hangar. She looked in quickly to make sure no one else was there, then grabbed her husband by the collar and laid a serious and passionate kiss on his lips.

"Damn, did you see _that?" _whispered one of the two Black Squadron Navy SEALs in Gilly suits. They were well concealed in a hedgerow just inside the airport fence.

"What? The takedown, or that kiss?"

"Both. Let the Commander know they're in."

From where John Casey was located the SEAL sniper team looked like just another clump of grass in the landscape, registering just barely on Tony Carmichael's thermal imaging device. He glanced briefly to his right towards where Gertrude had another nest at the opposite end of the airfield, and finally let out his held breath. "Jesus H. Christ, Chuck, you guys are going to give me a heart attack," he exclaimed, over the radio circuit. He and Anthony Carmichael were on sniper overwatch on a hilltop about a half mile away, and he'd damn near pulled the trigger.

"Sorry, big guy. We need to have a chat with Sarah about the similarity between 'so far, so good', and 'just one more mission.'"

"Oh, haha, very damn funny. Help me move this big lug, honey," Sarah grunted, as she tried to pull the guard over the ground by the drag handle on his vest. "Nikki, if you can't find somewhere to stash the one I took out, drag him down here to us, we'll hide them in the hangar with the jump gear."

"Rog, Sarah."

Sarah snapped the lock shut on the empty shipping container that now contained four heavily tranquilized guards. They shuffled several quick paces, and were now staring down a concrete ramp at the rear of the hangar, that led down into a dark expanse below. It was all very familiar. They'd walked through it in detail in Pardubice, and all of it was in the Intersect, too. But they still didn't know what they might encounter once they descended down it. The reinforced concrete and steel aircraft hangar was surprisingly large inside, but it's only contents were several empty shipping containers. Chuck couldn't help himself and chuckled softly when he looked at Sarah and Nikki.

"What?" asked Nikki, curiously with a tilt of her head to the side.

"Oh, us. These uniforms." They were wearing green BDU's with ballistic armor tactical vests and green patrol caps. Chuck was staring at the shoulder patch on Sarah's uniform that they had removed from one of the guards, along with their radios. The patch had a large isosceles triangle surrounding the earth with Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man superimposed over the top of it. Combined with the suppressed FN P90 submachine guns they were carrying it all looked strangely familiar. "I'm wondering if we're going to step into a room down there," he said, pointing down the darkened ramp, "and find a huge ring with alien markings on it." He did the eyebrow dance.

Sarah rolled her eyes at him. "The mission, Chuck," she warned, "I better not catch you stepping into _any_ glowing rings."

"Oh! Ha," Nikki whispered, "SG1. I guess we do look a little like them don't we?"

"A little?" Chuck grinned back, "Carina, status."

"We're getting ready to descend down to the intersection, Chucky."

"Same here. Let's proceed. We'll meet you at the junction."

"Roger, Chuckles."

"She has a way of taking all the tension out of the moment," said Nikki with a grin.

"Why do you think I called her?" asked Chuck with a quiet snort, "She never disappoints when things get sticky."

"That's because she has a habit of _making _things sticky," hissed Sarah quietly, with another roll of her eyes, as they started to moved silently down the ramp.

"I heard that, Bartowski," Carina's voice whispered over the radio circuit.

They moved stealthily into the darkness, emerging out into concrete lined tunnel with an arched roof just large enough to get a truck through. Most of the lights were out, but a few of them along the walls were lit, casting pools of light onto the floor ahead of them. At the very end of the tunnel near a dark intersection one of the lights was blinking. Chuck's eyebrows stitched together and he frowned, caught in the moment by the haunting familiarity of the sight.

He looked at Sarah to see her staring at him questioningly, "What?" she mouthed.

He shook his head briefly and shrugged, "Nothing...I think," he answered with a barely audible whisper.

When they reached the t-intersection of the two tunnels Chuck turned the bill of his cap around on his head and peered briefly around the corner spotting two enemy guards standing in the shadow between two lights. He looked up and stared at the blinking light across from him. It _had_ to be a coincidence. The guards were too far away for him to sneak up on them in the open tunnel. As he drew his tranq gun from the holster mounted on his chest he experienced an almost seamless flash, and then the two fulcrum agents crumpled to the ground with a clatter that echoed through the tunnel after four rapid puffs came from his pistol. "Damn, that was way too noisy," he said with a quiet whisper, looking at the two cringing women behind him, who obviously agreed with his assessment.

"I'm not sure what else you could have done," observed Nikki as they scrambled around the corner toward the still bodies lying on the concrete. "What do we do with these guys?"

"Let's drag them down there a ways," said Sarah pointing down the pitch black tunnel on the opposite side of the intersection. "That's odd, why are the lights out?"

"Good question," said Chuck, with a one shoulder shrug, "Don't look the gift horse..." he trailed off when he saw his wife's curious raised eyebrow. "Just sayin'"

"Yeah. Do you get the impression...?"

"Yeah, not sure I believe it though," said Chuck, with a hint of skepticism in his voice.

After stowing the bodies they continued silently down the tunnel. Up ahead of them the tunnel suddenly plunged into darkness, causing the three agents to exchange curious looks between them when another lone light lit and blinked near the intersection of what appeared to be three tunnels. "NV," said Sarah, reaching to pull on her miniaturized set of night vision goggles that were around her neck. "Someone is definitely helping us."

"Yeah, I feel like I'm being watched by a ghost," said Chuck, with a haunting lilt, "Mom?" he asked rhetorically. She did, after all, ask to stay at the CIA station with Julie.

"Could she do this?" asked Nikki.

"I don't know." Chuck's voice was dripping with curiosity. "Maybe...I guess. She's done things like this before."

As if on cue, Chuck's smartphone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, and his breath caught in his throat as he yanked his goggles down, watching the distinguishing green text scroll down the darkened display. "Holy..."

_**Teammates on the left.**_  
_**Six Fulcrum agents on the**_  
_**right near the vehicles.**_  
_**Cameras have been looped.**_

_**Ace's Charles**_

"What, Chuck?" asked Sarah with alarm.

He held his phone up for her to see, speechless.

"_What?_ Is that possible, Chuck? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I don't know what to think, Sarah," he said, with a thick gulp. He shook his head staring down the tunnel trying to remember the details of that awful day. He didn't even feel the phone when it vibrated briefly in his hand again, still facing toward his wife.

"Chuck," Sarah said softly, "look at your phone." She reached up grasping his hand around the phone and his eyes went wide from the instantly conveyed message that shot between them.

Chuck turned it around and expelled a sudden breath.

_**Hello Sarah**_

_**Believe it son. Keep**_  
_**your wits about you. **_  
_**Sarah is right. We need**_  
_**Agent Carmichael right**_  
_**now.**_

Chuck stared incredulously at the display, and it abruptly changed to an image showing the section of the tunnels they were in. Six green dots showed about seventy feet back in two of the tunnels leading to the intersection, and six red dots showed in the third tunnel around four graphic rectangles; two of the red dots were moving. Chuck's eyebrows shot up when he shuffled a few steps and one of the green dots moved. "Shit." Words like that hardly ever passed his lips. The display abruptly changed again and his hand flew to his mouth to suppress a snorting laugh.

_**Charles?**_

_**What have your mother**_  
_**and I told you about**_  
_**your language?**_

_**And what happened to my**_  
_**wrist computer?**_

"Ummm, Chucky?" came Carina's whispering voice over their earbuds, "Cole just got this weird text message on his phone. Who's Orion?"

* * *

**A/N **- Big, big action coming up. Keep your body armor handy.

My profile page also received an update today and the Sarah Versus the Farm blog is also up to date with content about chapter 8 - GO there!

Thanks for reading!

Mac


	14. Act 13

**A/N** 5/4/13 - Well this took a lot longer than I thought it would. Here's Act 13, and it is HUGE. It didn't make any sense to split it in two, so here is the whole enchilada, my friends. This part of the story was also eating me up because of all the action so tightly linked together, and something else. You'll see why as you read. Since it's mostly action it should read pretty darn fast anyway. Enjoy.

Thanks to Mrs. Mac for proofing and **somedeepmystery **for a quick read through. We're all kind of busy with real life right now, so beta on this was minimal and it might show some, but I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer.

**I don't own Chuck**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 13**

They moved silently down the dark concrete lined passage toward the intersection of the three tunnels. The blinking light at the end had gone out. Chuck glanced down at his phone, noting the positions of their opposition, then crept to the corner with his fist up, signaling for Sarah and Nikki to hold. As he lowered his night vision goggles around his neck, and stuck a small fiber optic camera out around the corner, he caught some movement in the corner of his eye. Looking over he spied Cole, Carina, and Zondra across the tunnel at the corner of the entrance to the connecting tunnel, with their goggles on, watching him intently. After a brief look at his subdued phone display he gave them a thumbs-up and a hand signal. They stalked silently over behind him in a low crouch.

"Since when did you start wearing your hat backwards?" Carina whispered into his ear.

He grinned at her, motioning them all back down the tunnel, and brought his mouth close to her ear as they started to move, "It's my new Jack O'Neill look, you like?"

Carina froze, pushing her NV goggles up on her forehead as she looked him in the eye, "Jack who? And who is Orion?"

"Stargate? Col. Jack O'Neill? He's even your type...oh, never mind, you had to be there," he said when her blank expression didn't change. "Orion is my dad."

"What?" Carina breathed, surprise now drawn on her face, "I thought your dad was dead?"

"So did I."

"So a ghost is helping us?"

"It would appear so," said Sarah, as the group met and huddled in the dark tunnel.

"For a ghost he seems to be doing a good job so far," observed Cole Barker, "What's the plan Chuck?"

"The plan right now is that we stay flexible. Those guards are still standing in front of that six-by-six truck that's blocking the tunnel. We can use the truck for cover." Chuck took Sarah's hand and their eyes met for a second, followed by a mutual nod.

"Follow our lead," whispered Sarah to the rest, and she and her husband scuttled down the tunnel hand-in-hand.

"What the hell was that?" asked Carina and Zondra almost simultaneously.

"Watch and learn ladies, and be ready to back them up," whispered Nikki, with a thin smile, "Let's go."

The four agents watched the two Intersects creep silently around the corner to the back of the one and a half ton six-by-six truck that was blocking most of the tunnel. It was one of those military style vehicles with a canvas covering over the cargo box. Chuck hoisted his lanky frame with surprising silence onto the canvas top, and then reached down to pull Sarah up with him in one fluid motion. Sarah signaled the other agents forward, and then she and Chuck started to crawl toward the front of the truck. The dimly lit tunnel looked clear ahead of them, and three golf carts were parked just beyond the six standing Fulcrum agents as they talked about the weather, of all things, in the deep concrete tunnel. Three of them were still positioned perfectly.

Chuck and Sarah shared quick affirming nods again along with a serious look that wordlessly said "Let's do this", and then bound to their feet in a crouch and leaped onto the hood of the truck with their hands clasped. Springing off the metal hood, they flew through the air in a slow forward flip, legs extended. Their feet met the faces of two of the startled enemy agents on the way down, and their clasped hands clotheslined the third one standing in the middle whipping him to the concrete floor head first as the husband and wife agents landed nimbly and almost silently in a crouch. Their weapons were already coming to bear on the three agents who were still standing, and staring at them dumbstruck. The three Fulcrum operatives fell from three rapid tranq shots from each agent's gun. Then the two Intersects spun and tranqed the other three agents already sprawled on the floor at their feet.

When their teammates scrambled around the truck and slid to a halt, with their weapons up, they stared at the bodies on the concrete floor. The only one who didn't show any surprise was Nikki. Every one of the enemy agents had two tranq darts in his neck. "What the hell? Why did you bring us along to this shindig, again?" Carina asked cynically. She looked up to see Sarah perched on the side of one of the golf carts, her arms braced on the roof, peering down the tunnel with a night vision monocular.

Chuck looked back at the statuesque auburn haired agent a little sheepishly, "You know why we asked you, Carina. We have to rescue three people we care about who may be held anywhere in here. We needed people we could trust to help. There's no way for Sarah and I to get them all out on our own."

Sarah turned to them with a thin smile on her face, "Besides, you wouldn't have taken no for an answer if we'd asked you to stay out of it anyway."

"Yeah, you've got that right, Blondie," Carina said with a snort, "After what you two have been through there was no damn way I was going to stay behind. It was a first for me being in your wedding. I don't want to set another precedent so soon by being in your funeral."

"We are all walking out of this one," Sarah said, flatly. "Let's stash these guards in the back of this truck. It doesn't look like we've alerted anyone," she said, cocking her thumb over her shoulder down the tunnel.

Once the unconscious guards were hidden, the six agents huddled at the back of truck out of sight. "Any opposition down there, Sarah?" asked Cole, briefly checking his suppressed Walther PPQ with a short tug on the slide, ensuring, out of habit, that a round was in battery and the pistol was ready.

"Three guards by the blast door. Shouldn't be too hard to take them out silently. We'll use those carts and drive right up to them." Sarah looked pointedly at her husband, and she drew her own silenced weapon from her low slung tactical holster on her hip, and repeated the same action as Cole. It was an STI .45 caliber automatic just like the two that Nikki was carrying in a similar double-rig. "Weapons check. From here on out we're going in with deadly force, unless there's a clear tactical advantage to using tranqs."

Sarah's eyes met Chuck's again after she holstered her new pistol, and she studied the reaction to her words on his face. She didn't want to have to tell him this, and said it silently, with a look and a touch. He nodded, his mouth drawn into a tight grim line, "It's Ellie," was all he said, and she nodded. "Right. We'll pair off and use these carts," said Chuck, with a deep breath, as his eyes traveled across those of his team. "Sarah and me, Nikki and Cole, Zondra and Carina. We'll go down the tunnel in a trailing line..."

- II -

"How is the good Doctor's husband doing?" Edgar Sloan looked briefly at Allen Preston standing next to him as they descended to the main labs and Intersect download room over two hundred feet below ground.

"He'll make it. He's a remarkably fit man, very resilient, very intelligent, gifted hands as a surgeon. He'd probably make a terrific programmed control agent."

"That's my plan for him," replied Sloan, turning stoically back toward the door, and watching the depth counter above it count up in meters. "First we'll use him as leverage once he's fit enough to take to the lab, then once he's helped us get what we want from his wife, we'll make her program him. I'm sure she'll accept that alternative over seeing him killed. Then we'll proceed with the plan to Intersect her and the rest of the technical staff; ensure their loyalty to the cause."

Preston glanced at his boss and smiled sardonically, "As long as you know where to draw the line, Edgar. I have no desire to have that thing in my head. I saw what it did to Sarah Walker." He shook his head, "Not the least bit interested in that, no matter what benefits the white coats say it might have."

The elevator car came to an abrupt halt with a rebounding bump, the number 65 in red LED on the display, and the door slid open. Edgar waved casually to the men at the guard station across from them and turned left toward the large security door at the end of the hallway. Two large Fulcrum operatives in the standard green tactical uniforms and ballistic vests were waiting for them there. Edgar gave the two dangerous looking operatives a sideways glance, "I already know I have your complete loyalty, Allen. Why do I need to push the issue when I already have so many other willing and capable volunteers?" he said with a subtle smirk, as he punched in the long and complex code into the keypad next to the door.

- III -

"So, both Chuck and Sarah are Intersects now." Cole Barker said it like it was an all too obvious fact.

"How much do you know, Agent Barker?" Nikki Lawson asked with a sidelong glance, while she drove the small electric cart they were in down the dimly lit concrete lined tunnel, directly behind Chuck and Sarah Bartowski.

"I'm completely read in; one of four at SIS. I was the first at MI6 to know about Chuck, rather by accident. I've known about him for years, but I only heard about this new version a few days ago."

"Do you know about the project plans, then?"

"Most definitely, Ms. Lawson. I'm helping to select candidates from SIS, and I am one myself. I also know about your involvement in the program."

"Interesting."

Cole looked over at her and smiled playfully, "Yes, isn't it," he said, raising his pistol as Nikki swerved the golf cart abruptly to the left.

In front of them Sarah Bartowski also raised her suppressed handgun as she and Chuck drove down the middle of the tunnel. The last cart in the line, with Carina and Zondra in it, swerved to the right as the electric vehicles formed a tight chevron approaching the huge blast door near the end of the long underground passage. The three guards fell in a hail of bullets from the operatives riding in the passenger seats, and when the electric carts came to a screeching halt on the smooth concrete the entire team jumped from them, weapons up and at the ready. No sooner had Sarah confirmed her lethal shots on her assigned target near the right side of the giant steel door, then started to sweep her pistol left, she heard the metallic clack of six very rapid suppressed shots from her left as Chuck slid into view on one knee in her peripheral vision. She watched aghast as three previously unseen guards near a door in an alcove about twenty yards from them toppled, two with guns trained on her and Zondra.

Sarah spun, and stared incredulously at her husband and Nikki Lawson, who was standing at his shoulder with her weapon ready, but unfired. "Jesus, Boss," Nikki breathed with surprise, before she ran forward to check the downed Fulcrum operatives.

For what seemed like an eternity, Sarah stood frozen as she watched the lazy wisp of smoke rise from the suppressor on Chuck's handgun, until her eyes fell directly on his, and his gaze stayed glued to the three fallen guards while Nikki checked and disarmed them. When Nikki waved Cole over to help her move the very dead guards, Chuck's eyes finally met those of his wife as she stood fixed like a statue only a few feet from him. "Chuck," she said, her voice laced with agony, "Oh, Chuck...honey..."

"They had you in their sights, Sarah, I had to. I didn't have a choice."

"I know. Thank you for having my back...again," she said, with a sorrowful expression; one that was mixed with the fire of a surprising sense of pride in her eyes. He always had her back, he always made the hard decisions, always did what he had to do, and she knew it; now more than ever.

"It wasn't that hard, Sarah. I know you probably could have helped, but a little piece of you dies every time you do this. I _have_ to share that burden. I can't let you bear it by yourself anymore."

Sarah watched, as he rose deliberately, changed the magazine, and holstered his weapon in his hip holster. She could feel eyes upon her, and looked over her shoulder to see Carina and Zondra watching the two of them quietly, but very obviously ready to say something supportive, or even snarky, if the moment took a wrong turn. A small grateful smile graced her face as she looked at her two former CAT squad partners. They had her back too, and they both knew how hard it really was for Chuck to do what he'd just done. She walked up to her husband remembering clearly what she had told him on the glider in the backyard. She didn't want to ever see him do this, but the reason he gave her made her heart soar. He was trying to protect her very soul, at the expense of his own. She walked up to him and hugged him tightly, but briefly. "Thank you, Chuck, I'll do everything I can to help you bear yours. We'll get through this together."

With the exchange of an understanding melancholy smile they turned and joined their teammates now grouped around the large heavy retractable door leading into the base. Nikki and Cole were in the process of bypassing the door controls when the door slid open. "I didn't do that," Nikki breathed, staring at her small tablet.

_**That's because I did, **_said the green message on her suddenly black screen. It scrolled up revealing another message,

_**Corridor is clear to stairwell.**_  
_**Do NOT use the elevator.**_  
_**I can't access the network on**_  
_**the lower levels yet.**_

"Boss, we need to have a talk about your Dad," Nikki said cryptically, "Do you really think he's still..." She trailed off, not wanting to be the vocal naysayer.

"Well, he's right, we can't use the elevator, that's for sure," answered Sarah, avoiding eye contact, "We have to go down to the bottom level and there's a guard station directly across from the elevator armored with bullet-proof glass."

Chuck nodded in agreement, "Sarah's right, we have to use the stairs. And that could be my Dad. There could be an explanation for it. His body was never recovered from the Ring."

_**You know what happened, son.**_  
_**You know what they did to me.**_

"Damn, this is getting freakin' creepy," breathed Carina, looking at Nikki's tablet screen, "And how do you two know about this supposed guard station? It wasn't on the plans."

Chuck and Sarah exchanged a wary look. As circumstances had it, Carina and Zondra were the only two on the team who hadn't been completely read in why all of this was happening, and it wasn't sitting very well with either of the two Intersects. Carina knew the most, but in reality only a little. Chuck gave his uber security conscious wife a questioning, almost pleading glance, and she nodded reluctantly back. "That's because we've seen another more updated database," said Sarah meeting her two former CAT squad teammate's eyes, "a database in our heads."

There was a brief moment of stunned silence as all six team members exchanged brief penetrating glimpses into one another's eyes. "You have _got_ to be kidding me. The Intersect is real?" said Zondra, making quick and disbelieving eye contact with Carina, "No way."

"Yes, way," said Chuck with a serious demeanor, that didn't match the less than serious way he'd said it.

"The U.S. intelligence network is indeed a sieve," chuckled Cole Barker, "Don't you blokes know how to keep compartmentalized information...compartmentalized?"

"Not where the intelligence rumor mill is concerned. The Intersect is a popular myth within the community." Chuck gave the man he considered a friend and mentor a friendly slap on the shoulder, "Most don't believe it prima facie, but I'm sure they'd all die before they shared even a rumor like that with the wrong people."

"I certainly hope so, otherwise we're all buggered."

"So, let me get this straight," Carina intoned, with a subtle shake of the head, "You two lovebirds are both Intersected? Wow, that almost sounds dirty, doesn't it? Sure does explain a lot, though," she said with a smirk.

Nikki snickered under her breath, "You don't know the half of it," she whispered almost inaudibly, getting a raised eyebrow and a grin from the two CATS. Surprisingly, she looked up to see Chuck and Sarah beaming at her, like they knew she was in for it, and she took a gulping breath.

"Listen, we don't have time to be discussing the finer points of being Intersected here," said Sarah with a mock scowl, "Now you know, and you should have known all of it before we started this, but frankly anyone who does know about this has a chance of being pulled into the program. So you've been warned, it seems to be the nature of the beast. Do you understand now? This is what is at stake. Chuck's sister helped to develop the version we have. That's how important this is."

"Yeah, Blondie, we understand," Carina said, sharing a wide-eyed look with Zondra.

"We're in, partner. Whatever you need us to do," Zondra agreed.

"Alright then, we've wasted enough time here, so let's move on."

Carina extended her arm down through the open doorway and toward the hall beyond, "Obviously, you can take the point," she said to her blonde partner with a grin.

Sarah gave her a 'Well, duh' look, and moved though the doorway in a crouch with Chuck on her shoulder.

Team Bartowski shuffled down the hallway, passing the elevator in a supportive column, covering multiple fields of fire, with Nikki and Cole at the back watching the rear. They moved silently and quickly toward a heavy metal door at the end of the hall. Just when they were about there, one of the side doors right in front of them opened, and they all froze for a split second, as Fulcrum operatives began to file out. The enemy operatives had even more startled looks on their faces when they faced off with team dressed in identical clothing. Chuck and Sarah sprang into motion, both rising quickly with palm strikes, and then a swift flurry of unified hands, elbows, knees, and feet, in very close quarters with the four enemy agents who'd made it out the door. The Fulcrum agents were quickly dispatched in heaps on the concrete floor and the two Intersects dove through the open doorway to the sound of a tumult of suppressed gunshots that spilled back into the corridor.

Carina and Zondra finished the four incapacitated Fulcrum agents laying at their feet with tranq shots, then ran toward the gunfire through the open door, and stood, looking down the sights of their guns in complete shock, staring at, at the very least, a dozen armed Fulcrum operatives lying arrayed around the room, and Chuck and Sarah, crouched back-to-back, in the center of it, apparently unscathed. Chuck and Sarah both exclaimed, "Clear," almost simultaneously, and turned to gaze at Sarah's two former bridesmaids.

"Damn, are you okay?" asked Zondra, upon seeing the intensely focused look in the couple's eyes, and then pursing her lips, when Sarah give her a slow nod, her mouth drawn in a tight frown.

"What a mess," Carina muttered, surveying the carnage. Even she was a little taken aback.

"Come on girls, let's get these bodies into one of those rooms and out of sight," said Sarah, pointing with the barrel of her pistol to a doorway with a couple of Fulcrum agents piled in it. She watched as Chuck closed his eyes and sightlessly reloaded his pistol, then she placed her hand on his cheek. When his eyes suddenly reopened, they locked on hers, and for a second he placed his hand over hers before reaching down to drag one of the lifeless enemy operatives across the room. She'd seen it before, had been there herself, multiple times. He was attempting to lock it down, to keep his emotions in check. So far he was holding it together, and she was doing everything she could to help him, but she wondered how long he would hold out.

"I'm guessing Orion doesn't have coverage everywhere in this facility. Looks like guards quarters," said Cole, when he and Nikki dragged the three lucky Fulcrum operatives into the room from the hallway, and then Nikki stood watch by the door as they cleared the room.

"No, there aren't cameras or detectors in every room," said Chuck quietly, and with a frighteningly emotionless timber to his voice. "This room was flagged as empty by the Intersect. Bad intel."

"Or misinformation." Cole looked up at him catching his eye "You did what you had to do, Chuck."

"I know, but this is not who I am," was Chuck's flat response.

"Most agents never have to do this, but today, it's who you need to be, my friend." With a swift kick, Cole broke the handle off the door they'd stashed the bodies in, and then cuffed Chuck in the shoulder as he went by him, before rejoining Nikki as they moved back into the hallway. When Sarah exited last from the room, she shut off the lights, and then broke off the switch with the butt of her handgun. Pulling the locked door closed, she exchanged an understanding, but wary, look with her husband, taking his hand as they made their way to the door leading to the stairwell.

"Your sister, Chuck. Remember, it's for your sister," she whispered to him as they settled by the door. He gave her a curt nod as he reached into his vest pocket and removed his vibrating phone.

_**Stairwell is clear to lower level.**_

_**I'm sorry, son. **_

The strike clacked open with a buzz, and Nikki opened the door. They looked down an open framework of metal stairs, into a deep, square concrete shaft. "We'll take point to the bottom," she said looking at Sarah over her shoulder, "It's our turn to shoulder some of this."

With a subtle nod from Sarah they all moved down the stairs moving as silently as possible on rusted expanded metal steps that were covered in multiple layers of paint. Nikki stopped every flight to listen for a moment, the only sound noticeable being the controlled breathing of the six agents in the deep concrete shaft the staircase descended into.

After descending about five flights, as they were pausing to listen, Chuck muttered, "Where is a Mr. Jibb machine when you need it?"

Three agents looked at him like he'd lost it and Carina whispered, "What?" when Sarah and Nikki both choked back a laugh.

"It was a soda pop machine that just happened to be an elevator. You'll have to read the mission report to believe it," Sarah said with a self-contained grin. _At least he's still holding onto his sense of humor_, Sarah thought as they continued down the stairs. They descended ten flights before they reached a small alcove at the bottom.

"There were five flights above us when we started," Chuck whispered when they huddled by the door. "We're about two hundred feet down. The lab is supposed to be that way." He pointed to the left as they faced the door.

"We still have to get past that guard station," Sarah pointed out, "It's about forty feet down the hall on the right. Supposedly eight men in it. Any ideas?"

Chuck looked at his wife somberly. "Well, we have to do this silently, otherwise we're gibs.

"Gibs?" asked Carina, "Is this about soda pop again?"

"Not this time," Nikki snerked, "Obviously, you're not an action gamer. Giblets, body parts...as in blown to smithereens.

"Oh. Lovely imagery. I motion that we avoid becoming gibs."

"I second that motion," said Zondra, deadpan, "Let's make the other guys gibs, okay?"

"I'll say aye to that," Chuck said, with an almost Casey like smile, "The updated schematic says the entrance is on the far side of the window, so we'll have to go under it to get to the door. And they've got at least a hundred mercs garrisoned on level three, two floors above the tunnel, and we definitely don't want them coming down here."

Sarah laid her hand on his arm, "Chuck, let me see your phone." He handed it to her, and she held it up in front of her. "Come on, Stephen, talk to me. Tell me you've got those cameras in the corridor looped. We don't want to do this the hard way." She looked back at Chuck. "If we had to, do you think we could contact Morgan from down here?"

"Doubtful. Not if even my Dad is having trouble."

Almost a minute passed and Sarah was beginning to resign herself to having to take the surveillance cameras down with her silenced weapon or with one of the EMP devices she and Chuck were carrying. "Come on..." she repeated impatiently. Then the green text started to scroll.

_**This section of the base is**_  
_**on a secure isolated node. I**_  
_**had to hack in through the **_  
_**security feed to the upper**_  
_**levels. **_

_**Stand by.**_

"Yes. He's in," Sarah breathed in relief, moving closer to Chuck to share the display.

"Are we sure that's him?" asked Zondra, "I don't want to be the one to say it, but this is a perfect way to lead us right into a trap."

Chuck and Sarah exchanged another one of those quick looks when he laid his hand on her leg, as they crouched in the dimly lit stairway alcove. "We think it's him,' he said with conviction, "He's exhibiting knowledge and behavior that fits his profile to a tee. He's used a term of endearment that very few know..._very_ few. And he told us how he happens to be alive."

"I concur, Dr. Kwambe's resurrection technology. And I can't believe Fulcrum could have hacked our secure phone network, especially from over their security or WiFi network. We'd have been captured long before this if they did. Only one man could have done this."

The two Intersects and Nikki looked at Cole Barker with silent astonishment.

"I told you your intelligence networks were a sieve. We also know what happened at that meeting in Los Angeles, and SIS has a dossier on Stephen Bartowski that's three centimeters thick," said the MI6 man, with a roguish smile.

_**Here's proof.**_

_**Updating your devices with **_  
_**new information I just hacked**_  
_**from their servers about the **_  
_**design of this base. Several **_  
_**changes since I gave Ellie the**_  
_**latest intel on this place for**_  
_**your Intersects.**_

"_What!?" _exclaimed Chuck, his voice shooting up a couple of octaves.

"Shhh, not so loud," Sarah admonished, as she stared wide-eyed at her husband.

"But, do you know what that means? It means Ellie _knew. _She's been working with our Dad.I can't believe she's been keeping secrets from me. My own sister has been keeping secrets from me," he said, with grumbling shock and dismay.

Sarah let out a short, low, and cynical laugh as she reached up and popped her husband in the forehead with the palm of her hand, grinning at him, "Hello, earth to Chuck. Pot? Kettle?"

_**Ellie's known for a while**_  
_**son. Need to know. We **_  
_**couldn't risk telling you **_  
_**or Sarah while you were **_  
_**seeing a CIA psychiatrist **_  
_**and having your Intersects**_  
_**so closely monitored.**_

_**Cameras are now looped, but **_  
_**I can't seem to access **_  
_**motion or thermal sensors **_  
_**yet. Give me another minute.**_

"Well, that makes sense," said Sarah squeezing her nerd's hand, "And I don't think there's any doubt now that it's Stephen."

"Yeah, that's him alright, as paranoid as always," said Chuck, with a sardonic one sided smile.

_**Very funny, son. Not!**_

_**Your mom and Ms. Peterson**_  
_**are helping me access some**_  
_**data. One more minute.**_

_**There. I now have control **_  
_**of all sensors, but there are **_  
_**gaps down here as well. No **_  
_**coverage in several connecting**_  
_**rooms. When you get to the **_  
_**guard station door, I'll open **__**it. **_

_**Be careful!**_

The strike clicked open on the door in front of them with a short buzz from the solenoid.

"I presume that's our cue to proceed," observed, Cole.

Nikki pushed the door open a crack and peered out. "Corridor's clear."

"Clear here, too," whispered Sarah, glancing at Chuck's phone.

"Remember, the bad guys are supposed to be gibs, not us," Carina whispered coarsely.

- IV -

The six operatives crawled one at a time under the large bullet-proof bay window jutting out into the corridor, while their teammates covered every point of entry into the concrete walled hallway. Besides the elevator and guard post door, that was recessed into a small alcove on the far side of the window, there were three doors beyond the guard post near the end of the passage. A large automated and armored sliding door with a keypad appeared to be the entrance to the main lab and control rooms for the base. The two doors on opposing sides of the corridor were also labs and server rooms, according to the updated plans Orion had uploaded to their phones and tablets, but unconnected to the main lab area.

The way that the windows to the guard post protruded into the corridor had created a tense moment, when one of the guards inside had stepped up to the three pane window and looked down the hallway toward the lab doors. They all froze in a tight stack, huddled against the wall still a good distance away from the windows, and by some miracle the guard didn't see them in the dimly lit part of the passage they were in. As soon as the enemy agent turned back into the room, they'd shuffled, quickly as a group, to the short wall at the base of the nearest of the three windows.

Now as they crawled under the window and congregated out of sight near the door Chuck looked up at the camera in the hallway across from them and waved, knowing somewhere, the father he had thought was long dead was watching over them. Sarah saw him and caught his eye with a small smile. They were close now, so close, the guards beyond this door were all that was between them and the lab. "Eight security personnel, just as we figured," she whispered into his ear, and pointed to the display on the phone, "This time we use tranqs, Chuck. We can't risk the sound of an errant bullet impact, we're too close."

Chuck nodded back, "Four of us then, we need two to cover the hall."

Chuck drew his tranq gun, holding it up for all to see, right when Cole came around the base of the window bringing up the rear. It was hand signals from this point as he instructed Carina and Zondra to stack up on him and Sarah, and Nikki and Cole to cover the hallway. Just then the phone vibrated in Sarah's hand.

_**Company coming on the**_  
_**elevator. Trying to override**_  
_**and slow it down**__**.**__** Time to**_  
_**get moving. Nod at me when**_  
_**ready.**_

"Crap," Chuck said under his breath, as Sarah held the phone up for Nikki and Cole to see and gestured emphatically at the elevator door. The two seasoned agents nodded curtly and readied themselves. After a brief glimpse of warning at Carina, Zondra, and his wife, Chuck fixed his eyes on the camera and nodded. No sooner had he turned back to the heavy steel door, it slid open with a heavy electric whir, and they jumped into the small room face-to-race with eight very startled Fulcrum agents. In less than two seconds it was over as the eight men toppled to the floor from multiple tranq dart hits.

"C'mon, quick, I've got an idea. Help me get these guys out of sight," said Chuck, in a rush, as he started to drag one of the agents up below the window, "Sarah, ask Dad how much longer before the elevator gets here."

_**I heard. Eighteen seconds.**_

"Eighteen seconds, Chuck."

"Damn, that's pretty specific," observed Zondra, with a grunt as she dragged one of the Fulcrum guards up below the window.

"That's my Dad for you. Nikki, Cole," Chuck growled as he and Sarah dragged another guard, "Get in here!"

The two agents backed quickly into the now crowded room, "Dad, the-" The door slid shut as Nikki and Cole cleared the threshold, "-door," he stuttered with a sudden smile, realizing his father knew exactly what he was up to. "Places everyone, you're now guards," he said hurriedly, pointing to several consoles around the sides of the room, "Sarah, with me."

They stepped up to the window and watched as the elevator door opened and two men in white lab coats and two more very large men in green tactical uniforms stepped from the elevator into the corridor. The two men in lab coats held up their ID badges on lanyards, and Chuck smiled, sheepishly waving, with raised eyebrows, at them as they stepped forward. Then he very animatedly gestured toward the security door at the end of the hallway when they started to step closer to the windows.

"You're not being very convincing, Chuck," Sarah mumbled, from the corner of her mouth as she looked sternly at the two most threatening individuals outside the window, both of whom were looking back at them very curiously. She strode forward to a microphone on the console below the window. "You're all cleared into the lab," she said brusquely, after keying the mic.

The two lab technicians, gave her a perfunctory wave, and moved toward the door, while the two Fulcrum operatives eyed her and Chuck suspiciously, but followed the white coated men. "Dad, hold that elevator for us, we may need it. Cole come watch those guys for us," Chuck said, a little excitedly as he started to back away from the window and angle toward the door with Sarah close behind. "Sorry ladies, but I don't think those two behemoths were expecting to see so many women in here. Keep an eye on em', Cole, give us the signal as soon as they key in the code for the door."

"I'm getting the evil eye, by Mr. Big, Chuck," warned Cole, watching the group at the door through the side window, "One of the techs is keying the code now."

"Dad, the door, on Agent Barker's word."

"Almost done," breathed, Cole, "Could be trouble, the two mercs are talking to each other and gesturing our way. Bloody hell, one of them is reaching for his radio, NOW, Chuck."

The door slid open and Chuck and Sarah burst from the room tranq pistols up, with Cole and Nikki hot on their heels, "Techs, Nikki," Sarah exclaimed as she unleashed multiple shots on the two big mercs, now charging them like bulls. The two surprised scientists stared at the advancing agents then spun back towards the door as it began to slide open with a heavy pneumatic hiss, only to fall across the entry with multiple red darts sticking from the back of their white lab coats. Chuck flashed as the huge agent Cole had called Mr. Big flung a meaty fist at his head. He bent back like a reed, catching the charging man's arm as he let the enemy agent's momentum carry him onto his back and he planted a foot in the man's gut and pushed off with the other on the floor.

The Fulcrum guard flew over him in a lazy outstretched flip, slammed into the wall, and fell with a heavy crunch onto the concrete. Chuck let his own momentum carry him back over into a reverse kip up and landed on his feet to see Sarah pummeling the other large agent's knees, gut, and head with ferocious combination of snap kicks, before landing a kick to the man's open groin and a vicious hammer blow to his temple that literally drove the man to the floor with a loud smack.

Sarah spun around, fists up, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and shouted, "Chuck!" wide eyed, looking behind him.

Chuck didn't even turn to look, and dove forward, rolling on his shoulder, as he felt the breeze from a freight train slip by him, and then the sound of two rapid large caliber suppressed shots, followed by what sounded like a car accident, as something hit the wall only feet from him. He sprang to his feet to see Mr. Big lying crumpled at his feet, with a formidable looking blade in his hand, and Nikki with her pistol up, smoke coming from the suppressor. The angle had been perilously close, and she looked at him grimly, her mouth drawn into a tight line, shaking her pistol angrily in her outstretched isosceles grip.

"Damn, that was way too close," Carina uttered, as she started to breathe again.

"Jesus Christ, that son-of-bitch took a half dozen tranq shots _and_ landed on his head, and he still kept coming," said Zondra rather casually, "I hope he's not the norm around here."

Sarah strode forward and grabbed her husband's hand earnestly, looking him sternly in the eye. "Don't let that happen again, Chuck, unless you want to see me die of a heart attack." Not waiting for an answer, she turned quickly and surveyed the scene. "No time to clean this up properly, we have to press on."

"Come on, let's move it," said Cole, standing on the threshold of the large automated double-door. "I'm standing in a door beam, and I don't think this thing is going to stay open much longer without sounding an alarm."

The door slid closed behind them with an authoritative clack when Cole stepped out of the doorway into the large hallway they now found themselves in. This part of the base looked new, almost sterile, without the rust stains on the concrete walls like the parts they'd already traveled through. Instead the walls were painted white with colored stripes at about chest height, most likely denoting paths to various parts of the facility. The ceiling was of the suspended commercial style with acoustic tiles and fluorescent lighting fixtures set in metal framework, instead of the pipes and conduits overhead.

"This is sure different," said Nikki quietly with her pistol up, pointing down the long corridor.

"It's in the Intersect," Sarah replied curiously, "This was once part of this place, but it's been updated, changed. Chuck, look at this." She pulled her husband closer showing him the facility layout on the phone his father had uploaded to it. "There's even a separate entrance now, on the opposite side of the labs and Intersect download room. That's an elevator."

"Huh. It looks like it comes up beyond the base perimeter. There's a shallow gully on that side." He gazed at her with a grin, "Looks like we found a better way out of here than we originally planned."

"Yeah, this corridor leads around the outside of all the work areas. It's exposed, but we can get to most of the labs and the download room from it." Sarah pointed down the hallway in the opposite direction Nikki and Cole were covering. "This is the best way to get in unobserved. All the main lab entrances are on the opposite side."

"Agreed. We'll access the lab from here," he said, pointing at the diagram, "That'll put us in behind the main lab and download room."

"Well let's move it then, Boss," Nikki said dryly, without turning around, "I've got a bad feeling about this place."

"Heh." He looked over at her at grinned, "You're hanging around Casey too much. He's starting to rub off on you. But you're right, let's get a move on before someone starts to discover all the bodies we've left lying around."

Sarah handed the phone back to Chuck and he put it in his vest pocket as they hustled down the corridor.

- V -

"Dr. Bartowski, I hope you find the workspace and the help satisfactory," said Edgar Sloan, with a penetrating gaze, as he strode into the room wearing a very expensive looking dark European tailored business suit with a black shirt and a pink silk tie.

"It's Dr. _Woodcomb_ now," Ellie said acidly, "I take it you're the man who has been the source of all this grief." Ellie stared at him from her seat at the lab workstation, the anger palpable in her eyes, her lower lip quivering barely perceptibly. "I want to see my husband."

"All in good time, doctor, all in good time," Sloan said, rubbing his thumb across the fingernails of one hand, than taking a sidelong glance at Allen Preston standing next to him. "I'll let you see your husband when you give me what I want; a bug free Intersect made to my precise specifications."

Ellie glared at him in defiance, "I've seen enough of your _specifications _to know what you're after isn't bug free. What you want are robots without free will."

Sloan looked up from his neatly trimmed fingernails at her with a wry smile. "You never did get to meet Ted Roark, did you? The man who tried to ruin your first wedding? What a magnificent bastard. He wanted an army of Intersect agents. Such a pathetic vision, no wonder he had to steal all your father's ideas. Even as nasty as he was, he didn't see the full potential of what could be achieved. How his army could have been truly invincible once their ability to question their orders was completely removed. So much potential there, wasted." Sloan looked pointedly over Ellie's shoulder at a large monitor showing Manoosh Depak strapped to a chair in the center of a large white paneled room, jerking his chin up. "Now, Doctor, you will give me what I want, optimized for a clean final download, or I'll have my team try the latest beta on the good Dr. Depak in there. I'm sure he'll still be useful for a while after, but how long is anyone's guess."

"You can threaten me all you want," Ellie said with defiant venom in her voice, "I already know they're more than threats, that you're planning on doing this to us whether we cooperate, or not. So you might as well live with the fact that your agents are going to self-destruct in a few months. I'd rather suffer a similar fate than become your pawn."

Allen Preston fidgeted almost imperceptibly on his feet as Sloan wheeled to fix hard eyes on him. Then he turned the glare to Ellie, laying both his hands on the desk, and leaning over it menacingly. On the monitor in front of her, just under Sloan's chin, the screen went black and green text appeared.

_**Stall, Eleanor. **_

_**Help is on the way.**_

Ellie almost blanched when she saw the message, before it suddenly winked out as fast as it had appeared, going back to her work screen. If it hadn't been for the fact it wasn't the first time she's seen such a message she would have probably given herself away.

"Doctor Woodcomb, you _will _help us, or I assure you, everyone you care about in your life, including your daughter, will be dead within a week."

Ellie swallowed thickly, as she stared at the obvious sociopath with large eyes. "If you want my help, I have to see my husband. Now. I need to know he's alive. Where is he?"

Sloan shook his head slowly, with smugness on his face. "All in good time Doctor, your husband is safe and recovering in the infirmary on level four. We'll bring him down as soon as he's mobile. But in the meantime I think I really need to show you how serious I am about all this." He turned to Preston angrily, "Get Wheaton and his assistant in here now. We're going to test the latest beta on the good Doctor's partner. He's already shown he's a viable candidate when he double-crossed the Ring two years ago."

- VI -

The Intersects and their team moved quietly down the brightly lit hallway double time. Approaching a corner, Sarah held her fist up, then spun around when she heard the door they had just passed open, and then a loud smack. Cole was holding an unconscious lab technician around the chest that Nikki had felled with a single punch as he stepped through the door. Nikki quickly poked her head in the door and back, shaking her head. She then held the door open for the British agent, so he could drag the man out of sight.

"Sarah, when we get done with this I really want to discuss retirement," whispered Chuck, breathing once again. He jumped, startled, and made a face, before pulling his buzzing phone from his pocket, "Crap-crap-crap."

"What, Chuck?" Sarah hissed, after crouching low and glancing around the corner.

He kneeled next to her, showing her the phone.

_**Hustle Chuck! They're going **_  
_**to Intersect Dr. Depak! Down **_  
_**the hall second door on the **_  
_**Left past the elevator to the**_  
_**surface. Sending elevator **_  
_**access codes to all your **_  
_**devices now. **_

_**Hurry!**_

"Dammit." Sarah looked again quickly around the corner, and then locked her flaming blue eyes on his. "You heard the man, screw stealth, let's go, triple time." She spun around and sprinted down the hallway as quietly as her rubber soled boots would allow, with Chuck struggling to catch up. Sarah pointed animatedly at the elevator door as she ran by, and then slid to a stop in a crouch near the door they'd been instructed to approach. She then swiftly pulled a fiber optic camera from her pocket and stuffed the end of it under the door, panning it around while looking at the display on her phone. "It's clear," she whispered, quickly stowing her gear, yanking the door open, and then lunging into the room with her pistol up.

The room was dark, with only the light from several computer monitors providing an eerie bluish illumination to the space. "One more room like this," Chuck said, scrambling through the door, with the rest of their team right behind him. He moved past her to the next door, referring to the screen on his own phone as he crouched down in front of it. "No cameras in this one either," he whispered, pulling out his own camera and pushing it under the base of the door as Sarah placed her hand on the door handle, watching over his shoulder. "Clear."

Sarah swung the door open and rushed into the equally darkened room, while Chuck rolled in next to the door jam, to clear the doorway for the rest of the team who silently followed with their weapons up. Carina and Zondra crouched behind desks covering the door to the next room.

The lanky nerd scrambled to a workstation and tapped furiously on the keyboard, glancing at his phone lying next to the keyboard every couple of seconds. One of the monitors in front of him came to life displaying a tiled view of multiple security camera feeds. "Ellie," he breathed, upon seeing his sister in one of them.

"And Manoosh," said Nikki pointing at the screen from over his shoulder, with Cole and Sarah alongside her.

"That's definitely a download room. We have to get him out of there." Sarah tapped one of the tiled images with her finger. "That's the room next door?"

"Yes. Four technicians and two Fulcrum mercs. Damn, they hire some big dudes," Chuck intoned cautiously. "That's the access room to the download chamber. Ellie's in the main lab just beyond it, and that's Sloan and Preston with her."

"And four more armed mercs," warned Barker.

"Yeah," Chuck agreed with a sigh. They watched as two more white coats entered the lab and took positions at workstations near Chuck's sister. One of the monitors turned black and text scrolled across it.

_**They're getting ready to**_  
_**Intersect Dr. Depak, Charles.**_  
_**Not much time. As soon as**_  
_**you get into the next room**_  
_**I'll loop the download chamber**_  
_**cameras. Looping staging room**_  
_**camera now. **_

_**Not much time! **_

"Tranqs or Guns?" asked Chuck turning to his wife and colleagues.

"Guns on the guards," said Sarah resolutely, "we can't chance that again, especially now."

"Okay." Chuck pursed his lips. "Nikki and Cole will lead in and take the mercs. The rest of us will get the techs, and then Sarah and I will grab Manoosh." He looked over at Sarah's two fellow CAT squad teammates. "Ladies, once we get Manoosh, I want you to get him out of here right away. Use that elevator we passed coming in here."

"Are you sure Chuckles? We should stay together." Carina did not look happy.

Chuck nodded grimly back at her, "No time for debate. We have to make sure we get the Intersect team out of here, even if it's only a part of it."

Carina glared at him for a second then nodded curtly, "I don't like it, but we'll do it."

"Thank you, Carina, this is important. Those SEALs up there need to know we're making progress."

"Since you put it that way. I know how to keep those boys occupied," the redhead replied with smirk.

Chuck tried to muster up a grin. "Good. Then let's do this."

The door flew open and the six agents burst into the room in a staggered high/low formation. The two big mercs never even came close to raising their FN P90's, falling instantly to double-taps from Nikki and Cole's very quiet suppressed handguns. They hit the floor with more noise than the agents weapons had made. The techs were also now slumped unconscious over their work consoles from multiple tranq darts. Chuck and Sarah had never stopped moving as they went through the room headed directly for the access door to the download chamber.

"Damn it. It's locked out," Sarah whispered harshly when she looked at the red warning display on the keypad, "They must be getting ready to begin the download."

Chuck stared at the keypad as he started to pull his small tablet from his vest, "Shit-shit-shit-shit, I don't even see how I can tap into this thing, and it's not in the Intersect. Dad if you're listening, we could sure use some help," he exclaimed as he started to pull a small Leatherman tool from another pocket.

All of the sudden, a large knife, held by feminine hand, pierced the face of the keypad with a loud thunk, and twisted it off with a small shower of sparks and tangled wires. Chuck's gaze shot over with shock at his shrugging wife, a slightly embarrassed expression painted on her face, and then both of their faces showed even more surprise when the door slid open.

"Did I do that? Or was that your Dad?"

"Don't think it matters much, Honey, c'mon!" he exclaimed, sprinting into the room.

Manoosh looked up at them in surprise when they scrambled up behind him and started to unfasten the straps holding him to the chair. "Am I ever glad to see you," he said in a rush of words, "they've started, we only have seconds."

"I don't work well under pressure Doc, so please spare me the play-by-play, okay?" Chuck stammered, fighting the straps.

"SHIT." A low hum started to resonate from the floor of the room and Sarah swiftly cut the last strap holding Manoosh's ankle to the chair with her knife. "Let's get out of here," she said excitedly, as she dropped the blade and grabbed both the Doctor and her husband by their upper arms and ran for the door. She almost dragged them, when the humming sound suddenly became very pronounced "Close your eyes!"

They flew through the door with a flurry of flashing light coming from the room behind them, rolling across the floor of the lab, and coming to a very sudden stop against the side of a desk. Then the flashing lights quit when the door slid back shut with a squeaking thump.

"I guess that _was _your Dad," said Sarah with a quiet groan as Nikki helped her to her feet.

"That was _way_ too close-" Chuck's words were cut off by the piercing sound of an alarm horn filling the room at a very uncomfortable volume. "CRAP! That tears it!" he shouted over the two-tone din.

"I would presume that means they found some bodies!" Cole Barker shouted back.

Chuck and Sarah glanced at each other and Sarah took Manoosh by the arm, pushing him to Carina and Zondra, "Get him out of here!"

"But, Sarah, we have to save Ellie," Dr. Depak shouted back in protest.

"We'll get her," said Chuck, with an animated swing of his arm, "Now GO!"

- VII -

"Ten seconds to download," said one of the engineers sitting at the consoles not far from Ellie, "Cypher spinup commencing."

"Please don't do this," Ellie muttered, "don't do this to him."

"It's a little late for that now, Doctor Woodcomb," answered Sloan dryly. "Dr. Depak is going to be a drone from now on."

"You bastard," Ellie breathed, glaring at him, "You dirty rot-"

The sudden oppressive wail of the alarm filling the room cut her off, as Sloan and Preston exchanged angered looks at each other, and the Fulcrum operatives with them raised their guns, playing them around the room.

Sloan stepped hastily to a terminal and scanned the monitor, seeing an image of one of his men panning a camera over several bodies in a corridor, and saying something he couldn't hear over the blaring sound of the alarm horns. "FUCK," he shouted, typing on the keyboard, "Get her! We'll take her to the safe room at hangar one until we find out what's going on here!"

Preston rounded the desk and yanked Ellie from her chair by her hair, bringing the barrel of his FN Five-Seven to her head, as he dragged her toward the main door to the large lab.

A door on the far side of the room flew off its hinges in a loud bang and a bright flash, skidding across the floor as a phalanx of bullets flew through the room and four green clad agents skidded in an array across the smooth floor. Sloan stood bewildered for a second as he watched four of his best men cut down so rapidly, only one getting a shot off, his P90 spraying the room wildly, as he fell from shots fired by what appeared to be from his own people. Then he realized two of the intruders were women, and then he recognized them, when they rose to their feet with their weapons trained on Preston and him.

"Shut off that goddamned alarm!" Sloan shouted, at one of the technicians still frozen in place at his console.

The man started to type on his keyboard and the alarm stopped before he'd made even a few keystrokes. "I didn't do that," he announced nervously.

"Thank you, Dad," Chuck said under his breath, twisting his index finger briefly in his ear, with a small shake of his head.

"Well, Station Chief Carmichael, and his lovely wife. Or should I call you Mr and Mrs. Bartoswki? Which would you prefer?" said Sloan sarcastically at the slowly advancing agents.

"Take your pick," said Sarah coldly, "You won't get to use it much longer."

"Maybe you might want to rethink that. My man Preston here is the one with the gun to your sister-in-law's head. I'd suggest dropping your weapons before he accidentally shoots her on my order."

Chuck and Sarah exchanged a quick look at each other from the corners of their eyes, and Chuck gave his wife an almost imperceptible nod.

"Wise choice Mr. Bartowski, you know I'll do it."

"I don't think you understood him," Sarah said evenly, "We've already been down that road once, and we're not taking it again...ever."

Allen Preston's head jerked back twice from the impact of two .45 caliber bullets that flew true from the STI pistol Nikki had gifted to Sarah only the day before. When Preston fell lifelessly to the floor, he dragged Ellie down with him, and they fell in a tangled heap. Then Nikki shouted a warning as a grenade flew through a side door spinning to the middle of the floor not far from Chuck's feet.

"Chuck, No!" Sarah watched as the world went into slow motion, and her husband took two very agonizingly slow steps, and kicked the flashbang grenade back out the door where it exploded in mid-flight just outside the open doorway. Then all hell broke loose as Fulcrum operatives started to spill through the main door into the room with guns blazing. But they fell like they were being cut by a scythe, from the bullets of Cole Barker's Walther, and the mind-bogglingly rapid and accurate fire of the Intersect couple's guns, as they shot back, while literally tumbling like gymnasts across the room. Nikki Lawson crouched with both her suppressed pistols up, knocking down dazed enemy agents like bowling pins as they tried to join the fight from the side door, through which Chuck had kicked the grenade.

Chuck watched with a grimace as Sloan scrambled out the main door in the pandemonium and disappeared. In seconds it was over and Sarah ran to Ellie who was trapped under the bulk of Allen Preston's body near the front door.

Shoving the big man's body off her sister-in-law she looked her over quickly, checking her for bullet wounds, "Are you okay?" she asked breathlessly, studying Ellie's dazed eyes with concern.

"Yes. Yes, I think so," Ellie responded slowly refocusing on Sarah, then taking her up in an embrace, "Thank you, Sarah."

Edgar Sloan ran around the outer hallway to the auxiliary elevator at the back of the labs and cursed, pounding his hand on the keypad when he saw it was at the top of the shaft. Several attempts to enter the code would not bring the car back down, and he screamed another string of expletives as he paced back and forth in front of the door, finally kicking it, and running back down the opposite corridor as he reached in his pocket for his phone.

"Everyone okay?" asked Chuck as he scrambled over to his wife and sister, and covered the doorway.

"I'm good," replied Cole, "But Sloan got away."

"Yeah, but he's not going to get far," said Chuck absently, watching out the partially open door, then pulling his buzzing phone from his pocket.

"I'm fine, too, Boss. Hallway's clear," said Nikki, coming back into the room through the side door, "Nice kick, Chuck. That could have been real ugly otherwise. Though, I think we need to get out of here before more bad guys come down here and try to ruin our day."

"We're leaving? Where's Devon? Did you get Devon?" Ellie asked shakily, "Chuck we _can't_ leave without him. Sloan said he's in the infirmary on level four," she said, with growing panic when she saw no answers forthcoming. "Chuck, we can't-"

"We'll get him, Ellie. That was Dad. He kept Sloan from using that elevator, says he's headed for the main entrance." Chuck pursed his lips giving Sarah a sober look, "Sarah, you and Nikki take my sister out of here. Cole and I will get Devon."

"No." Sarah glared at him, as she took his arm in a tight grip. "We stay together, Chuck, no matter what. I'm going with you."

Chuck shook his head. "Look, Sarah. Devon is injured and we may have to carry him out of here. Cole's the best choice for this. You know it."

"He's right, Sarah," said Cole, giving her a half smile, "We'll get Ellie's husband. And I'll carry both of them if I have to."

"No. No, Chuck." Sarah paused, and her gaze fell to the floor, like she was considering what more to say. "I'm supposed to protect you," she whispered, knowing what they were going to face if they went up to that part of the base.

"Please, Sarah," Chuck pleaded, as he rose to his feet, holding her hands, "We don't have time for this. We'll get Devon. Please help Nikki make sure my sister gets out of here."

Sarah rose and took him up quickly in her arms, "Damn it, Chuck. You better be careful. No heroics. No repeats of what happened with that monster at the entrance to this place."

Chuck kissed his wife and crossed his finger over his chest. "I promise."

"Then get going now, before I change my mind."

He nodded at her with a thin smile, giving her another quick kiss. Then he nodded at Cole and they were gone.

"Dammit," Sarah said weakly, staring at the ground misty eyed, "Please don't make me regret letting you do this, Chuck."

- VIII -

Up on the surface things became very active as armed Fulcrum operatives began to pour out of the door of a large blockhouse not far from entrance to the underground command center. "This does not look good," said John Casey surveying the situation from their perch on the hill overlooking the airport.

"I concur," replied Tony Carmichael watching through the spotting scope. "We can't let those guys go below ground. If they're in trouble down there..."

"So help me, Chuck, if I'm missing out on any gunplay..." Casey made a quiet grunt, like he'd already made the decision, "Gertie, I'm engaging. Let's let em' have it." He didn't even wait for an answer, unleashing his first shot that slapped a Fulcrum operative to the ground not far from the command center door.

"Nice shot, Johnny. On the way," said Gertrude casually over the comm link. The air filled with the sound of muffled high-power rifle fire as Fulcrum mercenaries started to fall like dominoes and scatter in disarray. Then the shooting became even more pronounced when several SEAL sniper teams joined in.

"You better get your asses out of there in one piece, Chuck," Casey muttered under his breath between shots.

- IX -

"Crap! They locked the door out!" Chuck tried another code from his phone but it failed too, with an access denied message. His phone buzzed, and his earbud crackled to life, and then the display changed showing Edgar Sloan pacing like a caged carnivore in front of the elevator leading to the command complex.

"Chuck."

"Dad? Oh, man, it's so good to hear your voice."

"It's good to hear yours too, son. I'm delaying that elevator, but Sloan has someone trying to manually override it. I'm trying to hack the door. Stand by."

They stood there waiting for what felt like an eternity, but what in reality were only seconds.

"Lots of bad guys coming down the stairs Chuck, so don't use them. Let Sloan take the elevator. I'll hold the outer doors open. Timing will be critical. You'll have to grab onto the bottom of the car as it heads up. I'll open the doors at level four as it passes so you can jump out. Do you understand?"

"Yes. We understand, Dad. I don't like it, but I understand it."

"Clever," said Cole, "This is looking less like a suicide mission every minute."

"The odds are still not in your favor," said Stephen Bartowski dispassionately. "You'll be on your own for a while. I have to get that other elevator back down for Ellie and Sarah."

Several seconds passed, and they watched through the hacked security feed.

"Got it," Stephen said with satisfaction, as the Elevator door opened and Sloan ran in. Then the door in front of Chuck and Cole slid open just as the elevator car door slid shut. "Go, Chuck. Good luck."

They got to the door just as the elevator car started up. Chuck looked at Cole and gulped as the SIS agent smiled confidently at him. "Piece of cake, Agent Carmichael. Just don't look down."

"Right, don't look down," he replied, grabbing onto the undercarriage when it came within reach and closing his eyes.

"I said don't look down, not close your eyes."

Chuck forced his eyes open to see Cole looking at him with a cheeky grin. Then he looked down. "Crap! Don't look down."

Right about that time Fulcrum agents started to spill out the stairwell at the end of the corridor.

-xxx-

"What is taking so long?" Sarah said impatiently, as they stood waiting for the elevator that would be their only means of escape from this place.

"Having some trouble with the override," Stephen Bartowski said into their earbuds. "They've got someone throwing countermeasures at me now, causing all sorts of trouble."

"Mr. Bartowski? Is that you?"

"None other. Be patient, daughter-in-law. I'm working on it."

"Is that my Dad?" asked Ellie wide-eyed, "Can I talk to him?"

Sarah looked back at her not sure how to accommodate her request.

"Hand her your phone, Sarah, I'm patching through that network. FYI, Chuck and Cole are on the way up."

"Thank you, that's good to know." Sarah said, with worry, handing her iPhone to Ellie.

"Dad?"

"Hi Eleanor, I'm glad you're okay, but we don't have time to talk and I need to concentrate right now. And I need to talk to Chuck. Stand by."

-xxx-

"Chuck?"

"Yeah, Dad? Starting to lose grip here a little."

"Almost there son, get ready to jump. When I tell you, you'll have to swing forward and let go."

"Yer shittin' me..."

"Trust me, son. The door is open and the corridor is clear. Get ready. Use the Intersect."

"Right, already done. I didn't even have to think about it."

"Excellent. That's exactly what we were trying to achieve. Slowing the car a bit. Here we go...three, two, one, NOW."

Chuck and Cole swung forward as the open door to the elevator shaft flashed into view and they tumbled onto the smooth concrete floor of the hallway, quickly drawing their weapons and covering both directions back-to-back.

"Ace's Charles. I knew you could do it. Get down the hallway quick to Cole's front, PDQ. Around the corner, second door on the left."

Chuck and Cole looked over their shoulders at each other curiously, then Cole grinned and pointed up at a security camera, shaking his head.

"Gotta go, Chuck. Hurry," his father said curtly, "the place is crawling with bad guys."

-xxx-

"Elevator's coming down, daughters."

"Hurry, Stephen, I think I hear company coming," said Sarah, listening to the sound of boots echoing in the corridors.

"I know. They're coming up the hallway you approached the lab from. You and Nikki may have to hold them off at the corner for a minute."

Sarah nodded to no one in particular and turned to Ellie. "Stay here at the door. When the car gets here, you get in, no hesitation, understood?"

Ellie, nodded back grimly, "Please don't make me leave here alone, Sarah."

Sarah gazed at her sister a moment, biting her lower lip, then took her up in an embrace, "I'll try not to, sis, but if we don't make into this elevator car, you make sure you find your way out of here, okay?" She broke the hug and gave Ellie's hands a squeeze. "Promise me."

"I'll get out, I promise," her mouth drawn tight, "_With you_," she added with a resolute smile, when Sarah and Nikki had started down the passage.

Sarah paused and turned back to smile at her before they moved down the hall.

-xxx-

Chuck stepped swiftly into the center of the hallway from around the corner and raised his tranq gun, unleashing four blindingly fast shots at the Fulcrum agent guarding the doorway thirty feet down the hall. The man collapsed in what looked like slow motion, when his legs gave out from under him, and he crumpled to the floor loudly.

No sooner had the shots left the gun, Cole shot around the corner and they both sprinted for the door hitting the floor in a slide just as it swung open and two more enemy agents started to come out. Chuck kicked the feet out from under one of them, and grabbed the security door, holding it open, while Cole tranqed the second and then finished the agent toppled by Chuck. They both then rolled into the room and shot a male nurse and another guard who was reaching for his radio. Devon looked up with total surprise when the nurse slumped across him on the bed. He was pale, but looked fairly alert, and his hands jerked at the straps restraining them and his ankles to the bed rails.

"Chuck! Am I ever glad to see you, bro. How did you get in here?"

"A story for another time, Devon, we are way pressed for time." The two agents quickly freed Devon from the bed, and when they pulled him into a sitting position, he grimaced. "Can you walk?" asked Chuck, noting the look of pain on his brother's face.

"I'll make myself walk, Chuck. Hell, I'll make myself run if I have to. Just point me in the direction you want me to go."

"Good." Chuck nodded, sizing up the unconscious guard, and quickly starting to strip him of his uniform, handing Devon the pants. "Then I'll lead. Let Cole here give you a hand if you need it, okay?"

"You got it, amigo. But I'll try not to cramp your partner's style here," Devon said, as he pulled on the boots that were about a size and a half too big for him.

Chuck peered out the door again after they had dragged the two downed guards into the room. "Coast is clear. Let's get the hell out of Dodge. You're going to pose as a prisoner, got it?"

"Absolutely," replied Devon with pain laced smile, "100% compliant."

"Then here we go," said Cole, with his gun at Devon's back, "Don't hesitate to lean on me if you have to."

They walked calmly down the hallway, past the elevator, and several doors. Chuck had just rounded a corner, the stairwell door in sight only a short sprint away, when a door ahead of them swung open and a large group of Fulcrum operatives started to file out into the hallway. He hastily ducked back around the corner, motioning Cole and Devon back.

"Start a room to room search. We think they may be up here to get the Doctor."

"Shit," Chuck mouthed to Devon and Cole looking quickly around, then pointing vigorously to a door near them. They backed through the door into the darkened room and Chuck scanned the crates around them and flashed. "Geez, they left this room unlocked?" he asked incredulously as they backed in between the stacks of crates.

"What do you mean," asked Cole, with a slight tilt of his head.

"Look." Chuck pointed at the crates, clearly marked 'C-4 - High Explosive'.

"Oh, jolly good, this will make a very big boom."

"That's not the half of it. I studied the schematics of this place provided by the Intersect very carefully. There's about 40,000 gallons of jet fuel in underground storage tanks on the other side of that wall," Chuck said, pointing across the room. "And if that's not enough, about two thousand gallons of liquid oxygen and nitrogen in storage tanks about fifty feet that way," he added, pointing.

"Damn. A very big boom, indeed. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? "

"Yeah, as surprising as that sounds. We can bring this entire place down, end this once and for all." Chuck reached into one of his belt pouches and pulled out two small round explosive devices with built in timers. "I guess it pays to come prepared for all contingencies. Help me with one of these crates."

"And how are we going to get out of here if you're bringing this place down around our ears, Chuck," whispered Devon, with excited worry.

"I have a plan, Awesome, and there's no damn way I'm going to let this place stay intact if we can take it down now."

-xxx-

Sarah stuck her fiber optic camera around the hallway corner, watching a large group of enemy operatives advance on their position.

"We can't stay here long, you know, they'll flank us through the labs in no time," Nikki observed as she looked back toward Chuck's sister standing apprehensively by the elevator.

"We'll have to let them get real close, then give them a very bloody nose," Sarah whispered, watching the camera. "Then we'll run like hell and hope Stephen can get the elevator to us in time. We should only need a few seconds, and it beats trying to hold them off exposed in the hallway."

"Just say the word, Sarah, and I'll take the high road."

"Getting close." Sarah pocketed her camera and started to count down, tucking her fingers into her palm. She closed her fist and nodded. Then she turned around the corner in a crouch, bracing her stance against the wall. Nikki stepped out high, her suppressed pistols akimbo, and they shot a wall of precisely aimed bullets down the corridor. Fulcrum agents fell wholesale, before they finally returned fire and the wall and corner near the women erupted in fragments of flying concrete and lead as they jumped back behind the cover of the wall. Nikki reloaded, and then poked back quickly around the corner, releasing another volley to wild commotion and erratic return fire. When she pulled back Sarah pushed her arms out again low and repeated the mantra for several quick Intersect aided shots that added to the growing pile of bodies in the middle of the hall.

"Oh wow, that did it," Nikki said, taking another quick peek along with a couple of shots, "They're retreating, headed into the lab. I think it's time to go!"

"Right. I hope that's enough. Let's get the hell out of here." They turned and sprinted back up the hallway, as Ellie watched them with eyes as big as saucers.

The elevator door opened, but Ellie didn't even see it, because she was so fixated on the two sprinting agents coming at her at breakneck speed. When Nikki and Sarah were only ten or fifteen feet away, one of the doors to the labs flew open, and a couple of Fulcrum agents started to shoot. The two women dove through the air, and time slowed to a crawl for Sarah, as she twisted and took aim in the air, returning fire. The next thing she knew, she was in the elevator car with Nikki and Ellie, who were piled in the corner as a result of the NSA agent's flying tackle of the elder Bartowski sibling. Bullets impacted the rear wall of the car, but the wild drumbeat of projectiles stopped abruptly when the doors slid shut. Then the elevator started to rise.

"Anyone else hit?" asked Sarah reaching for her side where a bullet had impacted her vest as she flew into the car. She looked over to see Nikki checking Ellie over carefully from head to toe as Chuck's sister stared at them in a state of shock. "Ellie! Ellie! Are you okay?! Talk to me!"

Ellie blinked hard, and shook off her stupor, her mouth snapping shut, "I'm fine, I'm fine! What about you! You're holding your side," she said hoarsely, scrambling to her knees to check Sarah.

"I'm okay, I'm okay, I think it glanced off the side trauma plate and hit the front panel at an angle. I don't think it went through," Sarah said rapid fire, sticking her hand under her vest and bringing it back out dry, showing it to Ellie. "Help me check Nikki, Ellie." Nikki looked fine to her, but she knew giving Ellie something to do with her training would help pull her back from the shock of what had just happened.

"I'm okay, too, though I do not know how, or why," Nikki said with a slow exhale as she leaned back against the wall of the car and let Ellie check her over.

They slumped on the floor, overwhelmed by the adrenaline, and waited as the elevator ascended.

-xxx-

They could hear the Fulcrum mercs searching the rooms around them, getting closer with each passing second. Chuck wound some tape around the block of C-4, firmly attaching the already powerful explosive device he was using to fuse it, and then set it at his feet. He then held the second block up and looked at Cole inquiringly, "Four minutes, agreed?"

"Affirmative, that should give us enough time to get to the tunnel, and then _no one _will be following us."

Chuck nodded in agreement, "_If_ nothing goes wrong." He set the timer on the other explosive charge and placed it back in the crate they had opened, and Cole popped the lid back down with his palm. "Can you run Devon? You may have to," said Chuck, fixing his eyes on his brother-in-law.

"Are you kidding? Get blown to smithereens, or run in pain. That's a tough decision."

"I'll take that as a yes. Get ready then, it's time for a distraction." Chuck picked up the block of C-4 and shuffled to the door, peeking into the hallway as a group of Fulcrum operatives started to round the corner at the end. "Okay, brace yourselves," he warned, swinging the door open. He made a lanky leap across the hallway, and flung the door open on the opposite side. Then he gulped, and stared at four armed men, as he pushed the delay button, and threw the charge deep into the room. For a split second he watched as the four enemy agent's eyes fixed on the flying block of C-4, and then he launched himself back across the hallway to the sound of submachine gun fire, and kicked the door shut behind him. Not more than two seconds passed and the floor slapped them up into the air with a thunderous crump from the high velocity explosive impulse.

Chuck scrambled to his feet, choking in the dust and stunned for a second, letting the Intersect do its crisis management thing on his brain and the ringing in his ears. He watched Cole get to his feet, helping Devon, and looked out the open doorway into the debris filled corridor, because the door was no longer there. He could see what used to be the room across from them, with a gaping hole in the floor, visible through the hanging dust and huge holes ripped raggedly in the walls. "You guys okay?"

Cole nodded crisply, locking eyes with him, with a wry grin.

"Yes," Devon choked, "Jesus, Chuck, are you crazy!?"

"I think it's time to leave," Chuck answered excitedly, his voice at least an octave higher, as he drew his weapon and urged his companions toward the hallway. "Try to look like victims, and if that doesn't work, shoot."

-xxx-

"What was that?" Ellie asked, when the elevator car shook with a thump in the shaft.

"Felt like an explosion. High velocity...plastique," said Nikki, exchanging a wary look with Sarah.

The door slid open and they stepped into a small reinforced concrete room, with two explosive proofed light fixtures on the arched ceiling above them, casting the room in an eerie glow. Sarah looked around hastily for a door, but there wasn't one anywhere obvious to her, only a keypad on the wall.

"I can't hack it. I've been locked out," said Stephen's scratchy voice in her ear, you'll have to bypass it manually. Sending the schematic to your phone now, but hurry, you don't have much time."

"What does that mean Stephen?" Sarah asked, suddenly alert from the tone of his voice. "Why don't we have much time?"

There was a long pause as Ellie held the phone up for Sarah, and she flashed, knowing immediately what to do, as she pried the face plate off the keypad with one of her throwing knives. "Talk to us. What's going on Stephen?"

"Because of Chuck, Sarah. He's pulled the plug on this place. You have about three and a half minutes to get out of there, before that whole complex blows sky high."

Sarah felt her heart hammer in her chest at her father-in-law's words, and she let the Intersect lead her through the process almost like she was a spectator, while she watched her hands work on the wiring. What had he done? Why was he doing this? Was he going to get out of this alive? Her mouth went as dry as the desert, with the sudden realization that her worst fears might come true. Even worse, she thought, and her spirit felt dead in her chest, because Devon was with her Chuck.

Seconds passed, while she cut and stripped the wires with the knife blade, and quickly twisted them together in the sequence laid out in her mind. Then a deep mechanical clicking sound resonated from the ceiling and a section of the wall moved in and slid up with the sound of heavy turning gears, revealing a dark, dirt floored, concrete tunnel with an arched ceiling beyond, and bright light coming from the end of it in the distance.

-xxx-

Chuck led Cole and Devon as they moved through the debris as quick as they could, rounding the corner again that led to the stairwell down to level five, and their best means of escape. Several Fulcrum agents lay wounded and stunned in the hallway and they strode carefully past them to the doorway leading down. Chuck glanced at his watch as he swung the door open, and stared at the heavily damaged metal staircase hanging precariously from the wall. "We've got a problem guys."

"Bloody hell," said Cole looking at the twisted metal trapeze, "Do you think it will hold?"

"Doubtful. In fact, the Intersect says no. If it goes it'll be a long hard fall to the bottom. I think I've got another idea. C'mon." Chuck lead them back the way they came down the hallway, at a trot glancing at his watch.

"Chuck, we're going back toward all those explosives," Devon warned, through a grimace.

"I know, Awesome, trust me, this is going to work but we have to hurry."

He led them through the debris to the bombed out floor of the room he had thrown the C-4 into, and looked down through the jagged maw into the darkness. Pulling a light stick from his vest he cracked it and threw it down. "Yes! This way."

Chuck jumped down a few feet onto the pile of rubble that was once the floor above and stepped into the debris filled room of the level five room that was next to the one he and Sarah had shot the group of Fulcrum agents in when they'd started. He helped Cole lower Devon down, then scrambled over the wreckage to the door and peered out into the corridor through the partially open door hanging on one hinge. "The corridor is clear, let's hustle guys we only have about two minutes."

They ran down the hallway with Chuck leading and Cole assisting a limping Devon. Chuck kept glancing at his watch, knowing they weren't going to make it if there wasn't some form of transportation still at this end of the tunnel. Sprinting through the large open security door into the big tunnel, it didn't occur to him until it was too late, that there was something wrong about that door being open. He skidded to a stop face-to-face with six Fulcrum Mercs. Guns started to rise and the Intersect kicked in. He leapt in close, and engaged the agents in hand-to-hand combat, using tight arcing kicks, joint locks, elbows, and hammer blows while his opponents attempted to overwhelm him. The Intersect had dictated a combination of Keysi and Aikido, making him look like a strangely fluid and lanky version of Batman.

In seconds he had three of the large men down and his remaining adversaries staggered. One lunged in with a large blade, and he pulled him in and snapped his arm like a twig at the elbow, taking the knife from him and flinging it behind him - not even looking until the very last instant - sending it into the chest of one of the remaining two who was leveling his pistol on him. Chuck pressed in, landing an elbow into the shocked man's face, then jerked the Fulcrum agents gun hand to aim the man's own weapon at his last opponent. But a suppressed gun shot rang out, and Chuck watched the last man go down. He lowered the man he'd just killed with a blade gently to the ground in a state of shock, staring at Cole, who'd shot the last enemy operative; the Merc who would have most likely killed him, if Cole hadn't shot when he did. It was that close. Devon was looking at him with an expression of abject disbelief, unable to comprehend what he'd just seen his brother-in-law do.

"How much time, Chuck?" Cole exclaimed, shaking him with a hand on his shoulder. "Chuck! Snap out of it!"

Chuck's eyes shot to him, and then he looked abruptly at his watch, taking a sudden deep breath, "Shit! Less than a minute! C'mon guys."

The three of them piled into one of the two remaining golf carts still parked where they'd left them, and raced down the tunnel as fast as the little electric cart would go, with Cole at the wheel.

"We're not going to make it are we?" asked Devon, staring down the long tunnel ahead of them.

"Yes. Yes, we are," Chuck answered resolutely, furiously typing on his iPhone, and then looking up at Devon with confidence in his eyes. "We're not toast yet, Devon. We still have a chance. And I have one idea left."

About forty seconds later an explosion that started out as a sharp slap, and then morphed into a long, continuous, and rolling thunderclap rocked the big underground complex, and a huge fireball rolled down the tunnel toward the airplane hangars at the other end.

-xxx-

The three battered and tired women trotted out of the tunnel into the bright early morning sunshine of a small verdant forest clearing, surrounded by shrubs and trees. The beauty around them was a shock to the system compared to the deep underground environment they'd just come from.

The forest was eerily silent as Sarah looked around them and then back down the tunnel from which they'd just emerged. Then she turned back when Nikki cleared her throat, to see they were surrounded by a group of very serious looking soldiers. _SEALs._

"Sarah, what is going on?" Ellie asked, when one of the men with a close cropped blond beard strode forward.

"Follow my lead, sis, we're going to get through this. I _think _these guys are on our side."

"Agent Carmichael, I'm Lt. Grigg's, Black Squadron. We're here to take you into custody.

"Excuse me? We've had a very rough morning. Did you say custody?" asked Nikki, with a touch of defiance in her voice.

The Navy Lieutenant smiled a little guardedly at Nikki, and then eyeballed Sarah. "Those are my orders ma'am. We've already picked up three of your colleagues, and-" He stopped short when the ground shook beneath their feet, and they all looked curiously around them. Then the Navy SEAL's eyes went wide and he rushed forward and physically shoved all three women across the clearing to the ground, spreading himself over them... "Take COVER!"

The sound of a freight train bore down on them, and the ground heaved under them, followed by an incredibly powerful blast and a pressure wave that shot from the tunnel from which they'd just emerged, like a giant blowtorch. The heat was oppressive, and it seemed to suck the oxygen right out of the air and their lungs. A few seconds later the sound of what could have been houses falling from the sky filled the air and shook the ground as massive pieces of concrete rained down all around them for several seconds.

When the shaking finally stopped, Sarah pushed the Navy Lieutenant off of her, and rolled over to see a dark pall of smoke emerging from the tunnel and from several places over a low hill several hundred feet away from them. Her heart leapt into her throat when it hit her what it could mean. No one inside the Fulcrum base would have survived such a conflagration.

"Sarah." She felt someone nudge her shoulder. "Sarah. Look at this." Ellie was holding Sarah's phone up. She'd been carrying it since they'd bypassed the access door to the tunnel.

Sarah took it from her sister's hand and saw she had a new text message...from Chuck. It had been sent just before the explosion they'd all just barely lived through. Nervously she pulled it up and read it.

_**I'm going to be a little **_  
_**while longer.**_

_**Meet me at Nadrazi Station **_  
_**for the 3:00PM train to**_  
_**Budapest. **_

_**I love you **__**Sarah Walker. **_

_**Will you **__**quit the spy life **_  
_**and run**__**away with me?**_

_**Yours always, Chuck**_

Sarah just lay there, staring at the message with tears rolling down her cheeks. All she could do was hope that the message meant the love of her life was still alive.

- X -

From their hillside sniper perch above the airport John Casey and Anthony Carmichael watched as the secret Fulcrum complex came unhinged in front of them. They'd received word that Carina, Zondra, and Dr. Depak had made it out, but had yet to hear if any of their other teammates had made it to safety before the base exploded violently, with a thunderous report and a shock wave that slapped them hard from over a half mile away. Casey knew that if his friends were still below ground, they were now gone. He scanned the complex with his riflescope looking for survivors, but saw only a very few battered individuals climbing from the wreckage of the heavily reinforced base. None of them was Chuck or Sarah, or any of the other members of their team.

Thick black smoke came from multiple buildings, from the command center all the way to the blast resistant airplane hangars, and orange flame was spewing, like a volcano, from where the entrance to the command center had once been. The entire reinforced concrete roof of the large above ground part of the command building, and probably several floors below it, had been blown into large and small pieces, with twisted rebar sticking out of them. They were scattered all over the airport; grizzly reminders of the sheer force of the explosion that had left not much more than a smoking hole in the ground.

"Casey, coming out of the far west hangar, look," said Tony placing his hand on the big man's shoulder.

He panned the scope over to the hangar in question and watched a man in a dark suit emerge from one of the doors and walk purposefully toward a Black BMW. "Son-of-a-bi...your life is mine, you wretched scumbag. No way are you walking away from this. Range."

"I'm showing 1440 meters," Tony said quickly. "Wind is on the beam from the right at about three."

"Roger that." The Colonel made some quick adjustments on his rifle scope and reacquired his target.

"He's getting in the car."

"I've got him. Ugh, that tie looks awful." Casey breathed, then exhaled and held it, and felt his pulse in his neck. The Barrett MRAD rifle recoiled and the big bullet flew flawless for the second and a half of flight from the top of the hill and across the airport.

"Hit," Tony said without emotion when the bullet impacted the windshield and he watched the target jerk violently in the seat. "You stoned him."

"Goodbye, Edgar Sloan, you slimy SOB," Casey said quietly, "It's a damn shame it was so quick and painless."

* * *

**A/N **- There you have it, another Chuck vs the Cliffhanger. Kind of unavoidable, don't you think?

Yes, Chuck finally got a little deadly here. But he's still Chuck.


	15. Act 14

**A/N **5/26/13 - Here we are, turning onto the home stretch.

Thank you to all my readers who've favorited, followed, and reviewed this tale as we've taken the journey together. I appreciate it very, very much.

**Don't own it, but it's been fun.**

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Act 14**

"Still no sign of them, and as yet we haven't been able to get inside the underground part of the base, except for the areas around the hangars. The fires are almost out, but there is still too much smoke. We've begun ventilating the tunnel again. We should be able to send in a team in an hour or two."

"Thank you, Major," said Diane Beckman, gazing down the length of the table at the women sitting at the other end. "I expect to be informed the minute you're able to get in."

"Yes, ma'am, you'll be the first to know." The Air Force fire rescue officer followed the general's eyes and turned away quickly when Ellie looked up at him, then made his way hastily from the room.

Sarah stared blankly at a large map on the wall of the commandeered conference room. The situation was beyond bleak and she knew it. It had been hours since she'd received the text message from Chuck. She looked at the phone in her lap for what had to have been at least the hundredth time since he'd sent her that text. They were convinced that Chuck wouldn't have sent it if he didn't think they would be making it out. Sarah knew him well enough to know if there was no hope the message would have been much different; that he would have said goodbye in that message, and asked her to look after his sister. So they'd both held onto the hope that the message represented, and waited. But he'd said he would be a little while longer, and the statement seemed so cryptic because what else did he have to do, or where could they have gone after bringing the facility down that would make them so late to appear?

For the first couple of hours she and Ellie had stood and watched as the dense black smoke rose from what was left of the underground Fulcrum base, and that text message was the only thing that had helped them hold it together. Then Mary showed up, and stoically passed along a message from Chuck's father. Stephen had lost contact with Chuck and Cole when the base was destroyed, and had been trying to communicate with them in some way ever since. It'd been frightful to Sarah seeing how emotionally detached Chuck's mother had been when she delivered the message. It reminded her of a recovered memory, when Mary had been so cold and manipulative when she allowed Alexei Volkoff to destroy the Bartowski's family home. The woman could compartmentalize things in such a scary way, and that had left Sarah wondering ever since just what Mary wasn't telling her and Ellie. The fact she or Ellie hadn't heard anything from Stephen personally only added more fuel to the fire.

After hours of time spent alternating between pacing and sitting, the desperation was starting to settle in and take hold, as they watched the rescue teams wait grimly along with them. Sarah could see it in Ellie's eyes as well, the resolve breaking down even as they tried to support each other while they waited. Now it was taking everything Sarah had within her to keep it from showing as well, as they sat in this conference room of a small local air freight business that was now using the old fortified cold war aircraft hangar and crew facilities. The faint smell of burning jet fuel still hung in the air and permeated her clothes.

Someone had brought food in and placed in on the large table where it had gone untouched. Sarah looked up at Ellie, sitting next to her holding her daughter, stroking the infants face with a shaky hand. Her face was becoming grief stricken, and her facade was crumbling in front of Sarah's eyes. When she placed her arm around Ellie's shoulders, her sister-in-law began to quake.

"Why'd he do it, Sarah? What was he thinking when he did that?" Ellie swallowed thickly, clearly struggling to stop the shaking, "If I'm responsible for this, I...I...don't..."

"Ellie..." Sarah took her free hand and turned Ellie's face to hers. "Ellie, this _isn't _your fault. I'm sure he had a reason. He's still our Chuck; the one who always manages to keep thinking on his feet and conquer the fear when it's at its worst. He had to have had a reason, an informed reason. We have to believe that."

"Oh, dear God, Sarah, we can't lose them, not now. Not after all we've been through."

Sarah's gaze traveled across the table to Mary and fell on her eyes, eyes that gave little or no hint of what the woman was thinking, but after a moment of unwavering contact, the hardened former agent blinked hard, and looked away. She felt a dark, dead weight in her chest. The special intimate contact she had been sharing with Chuck, that sharing of thought and spirit, it was completely broken, and the loss was tearing her asunder as she struggled to sense him.

She closed her eyes and tried again, but this time it was her own roiling emotions that were betraying her, as she tried to feel him...and he simply wasn't there. _He's not there!_ She stood bolt upright from her chair and ran from the room, because the only thing she could sense was her own heart shattering, and she knew she was about to lose it. Voices calling her were trying to penetrate through the dense black cloud enveloping her, as she flew through the door into the blindingly bright afternoon sunlight, and once again took in the destruction around her.

Not knowing where to go, presently, she found herself sitting atop the grassy earthen roof of the hangar, staring out across the field, but not really seeing anything in front of her. All she could see was what she had regained, in vivid relief in her mind, as the memories moved through her mind almost like a flash; sudden, stuttering, and convoluted, but strangely crystal clear at the same time. It was heaven, and it was hell, a razor sharp double-edged blade being pushed slowly into her chest.

Sensing movement in her peripheral vision she looked up to see John Casey studying her like he was trying to make a decision, his weight moving from one foot to the other. When Sarah reached out and put her hand on his calf, he stood like a statue for a moment, and then settled to the grass sitting very close to her, their shoulders touching.

"Why did he do it, Casey?" she said, repeating Ellie's question, and struggling to drive the tremor from her voice, "What _was_ he thinking? That was so un-Chuck-like for him to do."

Casey's eyes swept the devastation around them and settled on the large hole where the command center had once been. "Hnm, I've been trying to figure that kid out for years, why he does what he does. All I know for sure, is that more than nine times out of ten it turns out to be the right thing." The big man turned to her, his face hard as stone, but the pain clearly etched in his eyes. "I think we both know why he did it. I said it at one of the briefings."

Sarah nodded grimly, "To end it, once and for all."

"Yeah. I think he stumbled on an opportunity to finish this, and grabbed it. He knew our cover was completely compromised by almost everyone in that base. And you know Chuck, once he makes his mind up about something..." Casey trailed off when he felt Sarah's head resting on his shoulder. He looked over his other shoulder, down the sloping grass roof of the hangar, to Gertrude and Nikki standing on the ramp, the two women giving him moral support with their eyes and their body language. He watched as Gertrude subtly nodded at him, and then let his arm settle around his partner's shoulders.

"I never thought he had that in him, that he'd be capable of doing that," Sarah whispered softly. "I can't believe he would sacrifice himself like this, or take Devon and Cole along with him."

"I'm sure he had a plan, Sarah. Chuck always has a plan. But we both also know he'd give his life for any of us, if that was the only choice he had."

"I know. He's almost done it so many times. " She looked up at him, her face a torrent of emotion. "He'd never stay in the damn car. I'm so mad at him right now, John." Sarah's head fell back on his shoulder, like she couldn't support its weight anymore. "Dammit, Chuck," she sighed.

Sarah felt the Colonel's arm tighten around her. "Let me tell you something, Bartowski. You remember when I once told you that Chuck wasn't wired like us? After I told you I shot the mole?"

"Yes. You said he wasn't a killer. That he didn't have it in him. That he wasn't like us."

"Well, I was wrong. Wait, hear me out," Casey said, when Sarah raised her head and glared at him. "What I meant, is that we're wired just like he is, really. There's nothing special about us Wa-_Bartowski, _except for possibly an unhealthy sense of duty. Deep down, we aren't any different than Chuck. The only thing different about you and me? We're trained to suppress the damage that killing does to us, build a wall around it, push into it the darkest recesses of our souls and ignore it...and we've done it...too damn much. Chuck never learned to do that, he wouldn't accept it."

Sarah looked up at him curiously through her veiled grief, the question obvious on her face.

"When Chuck was released from his training in Prague," Casey continued, "Beckman said to me, she said that he'd told his trainers they were full of crap. When they tried to desensitize and condition him about killing? She said he told them, if he ever had to do it, he wanted to feel it, own it, live with it...die with it. Her words." John Casey took Sarah's hand and held it. The act shocked her, and pulled her eyes to his. "That's what is different about Chuck."

"Oh, God," Sarah breathed. Her lip began to quiver. "Casey, we had to shoot several Fulcrum agents down there. Chuck told me he couldn't bear to let me take on that burden by myself anymore. He killed several men...to protect me. I'm so worried about him, John. The things I've done have damaged me so much. I never wanted Chuck to have to go through it too. If he blew this place up..."

Casey grunted, like he really wasn't surprised to hear it at all, "Then he's going to need our help, in a big way. And maybe it's about time we admitted we need it too. We both know the Farm's desensitization training is bullshit, that what we've done eats at us, hardens us, damages our souls. I know you were worried the red test would change Chuck, make him something you wouldn't recognize anymore. Sarah, it's Chuck. Has he ever thought less of us because of what we've had to do in our pasts? Or even the possibility that we might have received a sanction order for him one day? Or did," he admitted.

"What?" Sarah stared at him, in stunned anguish, her lips pulling into a tight line.

"That's right. I was ordered to terminate the nerd when the replacement Intersect that killed Graham was brought online. I was in the apartment; gun in hand, when you told Chuck about the explosion."

Sarah sighed, closing her eyes and swallowing audibly, "I was so worried about the possibility they might do that. I should have seen it coming. Were you really going to do it?" she asked, opening her eyes to look at their clasped hands.

"I honestly don't know. It's the worst position I've ever been put in my entire life, but at the time I was bound by a misplaced sense of duty. Your nerd, he taught me something...that duty doesn't mean diddly, or the greater good squat, if you throw away your humanity in the process. Apparently Beckman learned that too, judging by what she said on the plane. Killing, _bullshit_, call it what it was, _murdering_ Chuck would have corrupted everything we were fighting for. And we now know it would have set us back years, possibly even let Fulcrum or the Ring win if we had done it. I think eventually it would have destroyed me, too."

Sarah took a long look at her partner, and a deep deliberate breath, letting go of his hand. She then laid her face in her open hands, like she was trying to block out the world. Sarah wasn't used to this sort of eloquence from Casey...no one was. Something in her told her she should be angry about what he'd revealed, that she should be outraged by what killing Chuck represented; but fate, and ironically, Fulcrum, had spared all of them that. Her own troubling memories of the things she'd done, and accepted as the things she'd done in the name of duty, they tempered any judgment she could possibly think of passing on her partner. She was bitterly ashamed of more than one event in all her experiences with Chuck that came close to making Casey's admission pale in significance.

But the man she was beginning to see they were all starting to mourn as lost to this day's events, her husband, had let so much of it simply be forgotten, as completely as her own once lost memories. She remembered a time when she told Ellie that Chuck was like a duck, and indeed he was, the way it all rolled right off his back, like a light rain. "I'm afraid he's gone Casey," she said into her hands, as she started to shake, "that everything we fought for was in vain. I don't know if I can go on without him."

"I know, Sarah, but don't give up on your nerd yet. I only have to look back at the last couple of days with you two to know he wouldn't go down without one hell of a fight. Chuck is stubborn, almost as stubborn as you. And even if he is gone, none of this was in vain, Fulcrum is no more, and he saw to that."

Her partner was right. It wasn't time to mourn just yet. Chuck had always been full of surprises, and even if he was gone, she had to face it in her own time, and in her own way. "I can't stay here. I have to go."

Casey glanced at his watch. "Going to the train station?"

"Yes." Sarah looked up at him with barely contained tears. "He told me to meet him there. I have to believe he'll come. He'll be there...he has to be there."

Her partner climbed to his feet, taking her hands and tugging her along with him as he rose. Something told him it would probably be better if she wasn't around when they found her missing husband and their friends, that it wouldn't be a pretty sight. "Then you better be there when he shows up," Casey said with a genuine smile, "I'll cover for you if anyone asks any questions."

"Thank you," Sarah said weakly, squeezing her friend's hands, before she turned and walked off the man-made grass hilltop, leaving John Casey there wondering if history was about to repeat itself in a very tragic and final way.

- II -

He choked in the oppressively dry heat. It felt like he was trying to breathe in a blast furnace, as the rippling heat scorched his lungs. How strange to be awoken by the Intersect, and have it issue instructions to him in this way, forcing him from his delirium. He pushed himself closer to the small grate of the vent at the base of the wall, and took a breath of the cool air in the breeze that came from it. Ironically, the fire raging outside the heavy steel and concrete doors sealing the room was the only thing keeping them alive, as the blaze pulled the air into the room through the ventilation system, trying to feed itself through the leaky seals of the fifty year old blast door. The rush of air around the door whistled incessantly, a constant reminder of how close they'd come, and how close they were to being incinerated.

Chuck crawled over to Devon, and checked his pulse, followed by another slow crawl and then a check of Cole's pulse, as well. Then he pushed their faces closer to the small vents they too were huddled in front of; vents designed to pull cooling air in from the outside to counteract the heat always being released by the constantly decaying radioactive fuel of the weapons once stored here. Both Devon and Cole were still alive, but their pulses were rapid and their breathing short and shallow. He looked up at the heavy wooden pallets stacked around them that had once cradled nuclear weapons in this room, lit by the last remaining light from a chemical light stick. They'd stacked the pallets in a tight circle around them in an effort to protect themselves from the intense heat radiating from the door and walls on the far side of the dark room. Chuck forced himself to his hands and knees briefly, to take a peek over the pallets, only to drop quickly to the floor again because the air only a short distance above them was like an oven. At least the door wasn't glowing red anymore, which had to be a positive sign.

They'd barely made it into this room in time; one of two former bunkers built to store the tactical nuclear weapons for which this base once existed. Time had run out just as they'd slammed the huge door shut, and a blast front with a wall of flame behind it slapped the door like a giant fist. Throughout the rapid onslaught of events the Intersect had been telling him what was happening, and what he'd done; and the impact of the decision had hit him like nothing he'd ever experienced. It had almost shut him down completely, but Cole and Devon, seeing what was happening to him, pulled him back from the dark depths into which he'd started to descend.

_Why'd I do it? _That question kept cycling through his mind. And though the Intersect always answered with same very precise mathematical answer, it was this feeling that radiated from his chest that spoke the loudest, one he couldn't interpret, but for some odd reason the one most reassuring, nonetheless. His thoughts drifted to Sarah, and Ellie, and all those family members and friends who were so close to him. When he saw their faces he understood why.

Then his thoughts turned back to Sarah, they always came back to Sarah, and she appeared to him as clearly as if she was standing right there in front of him, talking to him with her reassuring voice. The thought that his actions might come to this, that he would lose her this way, and leave her alone in the world after all that they had been through together, it tore his heart out and left him empty. That connection they'd forged over the last few weeks, that odd sensation when they touched, and lately even when they were near each other, when it was gone, when she was gone, he ached.

Once again he'd overstepped. The escape plan was good, and the Intersect's calculated odds had weighed heavily in their favor. But, in spite of the simple elegance of his plan they had been overtaken by unforeseen circumstances. It wasn't the first time. This had happened to him before, and each time it had occurred, Sarah had pulled his ass out of the fire. But this time he had put more than himself in the fire. This time he'd brought his brother-in-law, and a close colleague into the blaze with him; and this time Sarah wouldn't be able to pull him out.

If it wasn't bad enough that he'd gotten them trapped here; the thought of the pain he was causing for those they were leaving behind, because of his mistake, it was eating away at him like acid. The idea that Sarah and Ellie would be widowed, and both have to endure his and Devon's loss, it was devastating his mind and heart, tearing him apart. He closed his eyes, wanting to weep, but the tears would not come, because he was so dehydrated. It seemed like the Intersect had only awoken him so he could torture himself anew, he thought, before everything went black.

"You did the right thing, Chuck, 007 would be proud," said Cole Barker, slapping his leg with a wry smile, as the three of them huddled against the wall. "Decisions like this are never easy, but it's done. You didn't just end Fulcrum here today, you sent a message. What happened here will cause every nefarious bastard with ill intent for the world to go to ground, and think twice before becoming involved in something like this."

"I'm not sure if my motives were that noble," Chuck said with dark emotion, "they took my sister." He looked over at his brother-in-law and dropped his palm on Devon's knee, "And my brother. I think I was acting on anger more than anything else, although the Intersect was quite clear what the outcome would be."

"Thanks for getting angry, bro." Devon placed his hand over Chuck's "Sometimes it takes hard emotions like that to get us through the rough spots. As long as we learn to let them go, it's cool, Chuck."

"I don't think I've ever seen you angry, Devon, not like that. Not the way I felt."

"Oh, yeah you have," Devon replied, staring up at the dark arched ceiling above them, then smiling thinly. "For the record, yours didn't show that much today either. The only way I knew was by watching you fight those dudes. That was awesome anger."

"Always channel it in productively destructive ways, that's my motto," Cole chuckled.

The three men sat in companionable silence for several minutes, the sound of air whistling through the door seals and a distant roar the only accompaniment to their thoughts.

"Speaking of the Intersect, what's it telling you about us getting out of this alive, Chuck?" Devon asked with a resignation that was predicting an answer he didn't want to hear.

Chuck sighed loudly, "The calculated odds were very good until I told it that the exhaust vents for this room don't appear to be working. Now I just don't know." He stared at his almost dead phone, lamenting the fact he couldn't replace the battery on the iPhone with a freshly charged one. "No signal down here either, communications went out when I destroyed the network and repeaters in this joint." He shut the phone off to spare what little battery power was left.

"I can't imagine what must be going through Ellie's head right now," Devon said softly.

"I'm thinking Sarah's a little pissed at me right about now."

"You and me, both," said Cole, looking over at Chuck with a slight smirk, "We all better get the hell out of this, because I don't want to face your wife as a sole survivor. May as well eat a bullet."

They sat quietly again for several minutes, feeling the heat steadily rising in the large concrete lined room. Chuck looked around them and felt the Intersect processing new information.

"You know she's not mad at you, Chuck." Devon set his elbow on his knee, and dropped his forehead into the palm of his hand. "Anger comes later," he grimaced.

"We're not cooked yet, Awesome. The Intersect is telling me that all this cool thick concrete might be our saving grace."

Devon looked over at the door across the room, lit by the eerie yellow glow of a light stick they'd stuck in the crack of a weapons pallet. Several layers of paint on the blast door were smoking, the wisps being drawn quickly into the edges of the door frame. "I hope it's right. Because it's starting to _look_ like we'll be cooked."

- III -

_Damn. _He'd slipped into unconsciousness again, only to be reawakened by the Intersect once more, like an electric shock in his head. His mouth felt so dry, his lips rough and split. The room felt cooler, the breeze in his face from the vent almost refreshing even though it wasn't blowing nearly as hard as it had before. _It's cooler! _The thought pushed through the delirium hanging over him like a dense fog. _It's cooler! _

He heard noises. Voices? _Shouting! That's Casey! It can't be, you're hallucinating. _Metallic clanging filled his head, followed by the sound of a two-stroke power saw engine and the whine of a carbide blade on steel. He tried to move, but his limbs were leaden and almost useless. He drifted in and out, and in a lucid moment turned his head to look at his two companions lying motionless near him. Blinking hard, his eyes felt dry and shrunken, as he tried to focus them and see if Devon and Cole were breathing.

A loud mechanical screeching sound assaulted his ears and the breeze in his face suddenly grew stronger as light spilled into the room.

"Chuck me, they're HERE! Get that medical team in here, NOW!" Heavy footsteps came toward him, and he couldn't help but smile, recognizing the purposeful cadence of the gait.

"Chuck! Dammit, moron, you better still be with us."

Who would have ever thought an angel would sound like John Casey, and be spouting insults? It was almost disturbing. He tried to speak, but his voice failed him for a second as he looked up into the concerned face of his colleague and good friend.

"No need to talk, Chuck. You're suffering from heat stroke and you're severely dehydrated," said Casey, pulling the tube of a hydration bladder from the holder on his vest and letting the water dribble from it into Chuck's mouth.

"Devon...Cole," he weakly wheezed.

Casey looked over his shoulder at the Air Force medics attending to their friends, receiving a thumbs-up, and a nod from one of them. "They're going to be okay, Chuck. You guys made it." Casey pulled Chuck's glove off his hand and began to roll his shirt sleeve up. "Gonna get an IV started to get some fluids in you. Sit tight."

"I don't think I'm moving anytime soon," said Chuck sheepishly, between sips of water from Casey's hydration tube, "I can't make my limbs work" He looked around the room with sudden awareness. "Sarah. Where's Sarah? Why isn't she here with you?"

Casey could see Chuck was starting to become agitated, probably suspecting the worst since she wasn't here, and pushed him back down when he tried to sit up. "Take it easy, knucklehead, you told her to meet you at the train station, remember?"

"She's at the train station?"

The big man regarded him a carefully out of the corner of his eye, as he slipped an IV needle into a vein, then tucked the bag of saline solution under Chuck's armpit. "Yeah. She wasn't in good shape, meathead. We all thought you were lost. Frankly, all I thought we were going to find was crispy fried Chuck, so I didn't try to stop her when she said she had to go."

"Oh, God, what time is it? How long has she been gone?"

"It's a little after 2:00, Bartowski, she left about forty minutes ago."

Chuck reached for his phone and powered it up looking at the display impatiently, but the phone remained blank. "Casey, let me borrow your phone."

"Are you out of your mind, numbnuts? You're _not_ going to call her from my phone, she's expecting the worst if she gets a call from anyone but _you_."

"Then I have to get to the train station," Chuck said excitedly, trying to once again push himself up.

"Lie down, _dumbass_." The big man pushed him firmly back down.

"Can you please lay off with the insults? I have-"

"Listen, MORON," Casey interrupted with a growl, "you gave us all a huge scare with your James Bond bullshit, so the insults will _not _be stopping anytime soon."

"James Bond?" Chuck glowered at his partner. "Let me tell you big guy, if I was trying to be James Bond, Sarah would have been here with me and you would have interrupted...well, you know what."

"Ugh."

Chuck heard a soft feminine chuckle and looked up to see his mother stepping forward where he could see her. "Casey's right, Chuck. It's good to see you're alive, but a lot of us aren't very happy with you at the moment."

"I did what I had to do. Mom, you of all people should know that. This is over. It's done. And I'll have to live with the consequences of my decision."

Mary pursed her lips and nodded, meeting her son's penetrating gaze. "I know, Chuck. You did what I would have done. I wish I didn't have to admit that, or it had to be you who did it, but you definitely have some of my temperament in you."

Casey grunted in affirmation. Chuck took a long pull of water, looking back and forth between his mother and the big NSA agent. He'd never really considered where that harder, colder, more decisive part of him might have come from. The revelation was a bit startling. "Mom, I have to get to Nadrazi station. If I miss that train..."

"Take it easy, Chuck," she answered calmly, "I agree, but you're in no shape to be driving. Let's get you out of here first and get you a change of clothes, then I'll drive you to the station. We'll get there in time."

Chuck studied his mother for a few seconds, and then nodded, as he pushed himself up. This time Casey didn't try to stop him. "Okay. We have a lot to talk about, Mom."

"Yes we do. And since we're going to Budapest, I assume spending some time with your father is also on your list of things to do."

"Yeah, it is," Chuck smiled weakly, "Time with both of you, together."

- IV -

Sarah sat on one of the few benches that were sparsely spread around the high arched roof concourse at Praha Hlavni Nadrazi, the main railway station in Prague; her 'go' bag was at her feet. She looked at the two train tickets she'd purchased on an act of faith, that were now resting in her lap. The last time she'd been here, nearly three years ago, had been one of the most difficult days of her life. She'd made a monumental decision three weeks before, the decision to run away with Chuck. It would have meant living a life off the grid, in hiding, and almost assuredly, constantly pursued by the government. Thinking back on it now, with the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, she realized it would have been a disaster. It would have probably broken them apart much worse than Chuck's sudden refusal to go with her here at this station that day.

She knew now how much she loved Chuck back then, like no other before, and she'd wanted to protect him, to just be with him. But leaving everything they knew and cared about behind, Chuck's family, his friends, _their_ friends, and living life on the lam, it was fraught with grave danger. They might have been able to make a go of it for a while. It might have even drawn them closer because they'd have had to rely on each other like they never had before. But the CIA would have eventually caught up with them, and Chuck would have been thrown into protective custody, locked up in a house-arrest version of WITSEC somewhere. And she would have been thrown into prison, never again to see the light of day, or possibly even dead.

There were way too many 'buts', and she should have seen them, but her heart had blinded her to the realities of what they'd faced, and allowed her to delude herself that they could stay hidden from the army of pursuers who would have been hot on their trail. It was all wrong, and as badly as Chuck had handled it, she realized he understood that, and she'd made him pay for his choice that had saved both of them, far too harshly, and for far too long. Her stubborn pride wouldn't let her forgive him, or let her see the error of judgment she'd made. She'd told herself she didn't want the CIA to change him, turn him into something neither of them recognized anymore. She'd watched as he did change, become a little more cold, and more calculating, and confident, as he turned Charles Carmichael on and off like a light-switch. What she didn't see was how hard Chuck was fighting to hold onto who he was, and how he was reaching out to her, asking her for her help, to desperately hold on to who her Chuck still was.

Sarah hated the idea of Chuck becoming a spy so much that she'd imprinted a great many things onto him that simply weren't there, things she saw in herself. And Chuck hated many of the ways the CIA and NSA operated. He struggled with the by-the-book concepts and the training he was given, re-examined them, and then reinvented them to suit who he was. What had always made him great, what had made him, and by extension his team so successful, was the way he did it his own way, the way his genius refused to fit within the CIA box. He'd always been an amazing operative, and a hero, almost from day one, and that anyone would want to change what he already was simply defied all logic and common sense.

Why Sarah couldn't see his resistance to fit into the mold in his quest to be a spy was also a mystery. Somehow she'd finally figured it out when he'd come to rescue her from Daniel Shaw that afternoon out in the desert, after his fervent declaration of love to her in Castle. Chuck cared so much he'd even brought a tank. It wasn't until later that she'd understood how close she'd come to being murdered by Daniel that day. Then Chuck had also shot and killed Daniel Shaw on that bridge in Paris, to protect her, but it hadn't turned him into an unfeeling hardened monster like she'd feared. He was still her Chuck. Now after talking with Casey about it she understood even more why that was the case.

Then there was his perception of _her_. He knew about so many of the things she'd done as an agent, and as a con artist, yet he saw very clearly through them, saw her through all that very painful veneer. He accepted her, and loved her, it had never wavered. Even when she had told him she 'had done her job too well', like he was just another deep cover mission, something that defied so many things she knew about herself, but for some reason accepted from Nicholas Quinn as the truth. That admission had painted such an ugly picture of her. That she had been willing to accept the idea of that form of institutional use, and abuse of her, for the sake of a successful mission; to allow the CIA to pimp her out like a prostitute, even marry Chuck, it went way too far.

The Central Intelligence Agency didn't operate that way, and she should have known it, she _did_ know it, but she'd lived with the lies for so long, and she'd been so damaged after being handled by that devious bastard of a case officer, Kieran Ryker, it seemed anything was possible after that experience. Quinn really hadn't been any different than Ryker, either. He'd known her past, and fitted into Ryker's manipulative role perfectly, and she'd fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

A tear rolled down her cheek. Because she knew now what Chuck had done to help change her, to nurture her, and help her allow herself to change into something she had always wanted to be. It broke her, like a glass shattering on the floor, that the person she was, just before she'd met Chuck, would say that terrible and damaging thing to him in their own home, memory loss, or not. She should have realized that something was horrifically wrong. The shame of knowing how badly she'd been duped, had precipitated her running from Chuck, sent her into hiding from the very source of her own rebirth into the person he could always see in her. And somehow he had forgiven her.

The irony of it all, was now knowing what she had done to bring Chuck back from his own deep self-induced dungeon of despair and worthlessness, as well. By being given the awesome responsibility of the Intersect, Chuck, with her help, had reached a level of human potential so few ever achieve. He'd risen to the challenges the world had thrown at him, when his very life and the lives of his family and friends were at stake, and she had helped him face those threats and challenges. It was a great source of pride that she, hardened and damaged CIA agent, Sarah Walker, had been able to help him see the hero he'd always had within him. They had rebuilt each other, together, into something so much more than their individual parts.

The two of them, along with Casey, they had become the most successful team in the history of the CIA, and for most of it Chuck wasn't even officially an agent. The things they had achieved together were driven by a force it had taken her years to understand or face down. She loved him, and had from almost the very beginning. Their bond had been there all along, barely held apart by artificial forces that eventually crumbled in the face of something she had finally allowed herself to acknowledge, a force of love so strong they had repeatedly put their lives on the line, and fought across the earth to protect and save each other.

Now, looking at her watch, Sarah was trying to face the possibility that it might all have finally caught up with them, that Chuck was gone. She'd always thought it would be her, that Chuck would be the one picking up the pieces after losing her, not this. The idea that he could be gone forever shook her to the core, and she started to tremble there on that bench, wondering how _she_ would ever pick up the pieces if it were true.

The train to Budapest pulled up to the platform, and as the people started to file off of it, she began to weep. She'd made the decision she would get on this train, whether Chuck showed up, or not. It was how she would mourn his loss, by running away with him in spirit, if only for a little while. Then she would return, and help Ellie get through it. She had a sister now that needed her, a family and friends who relied on her. She wasn't going to let them down. Duty had another face now, and love was what drove it.

Sarah took one last look at her phone, read Chuck's message, and wiped another tear away, schooling her features as the disembarking passengers and riders waiting to board bustled around her. She felt eyes upon her and looked up to see a very young girl, maybe three, with long blond hair and hauntingly familiar brown eyes, watching her closely, her arm wrapped around a young woman's leg. It was too much. She tried to give the little girl a smile, but it broke into shards as the tears started to stream down her face, and she shook uncontrollably. That little girl represented something she and Chuck had come to realize they both wanted so much, something that would never be. She covered her face with her hand and choked into her palm in grief.

Then she felt her phone vibrate in her other hand, and looked down with a start, at the green text on the black screen.

_**Look up to your right.**_

Sarah looked quickly up and spotted a security camera looking back down at her from the overhead atop one of the decorative support columns, the red light on it blinking. _Stephen, _she thought, trying to get a hold of her runaway emotions. Her phone buzzed again.

_**Don't give up, daughter.**_  
_**It's not over. Wipe your**_  
_**tears and look down the **_  
_**platform to your left.**_

She swallowed hard, her breath catching in her throat, as she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Then she turned and looked down the platform through the throngs of passengers making their way to the main concourse. Sarah blinked back tears, trying to see through her misty eyes, and then gaped almost disbelievingly, when her eyes fell on a tall, dark, very red skinned man walking slowly down the ramp toward her. He was leaning on a shorter brunette haired woman dressed in black, making cautious and measured steps. It seemed like the sea of people around them was parting as they moved through the mass of humanity.

"_Chuck," _she choked, as the man looked up from his carefully placed steps, and their eyes met. _Oh, Chuck! _

Sarah rose quickly, but stood frozen by the bench, unsure if she should believe her own eyes. After a moment watching, and finally seeing the soft smile on his mother's face, her feet started to move without thought, and she strode slowly toward them across the platform. He had this look on his face, like he thought he might be in trouble, maybe a little worried about how she might react to him being here. But his expression softened when he saw the look of relief and elation that she knew had to be radiating from her like a bright star.

Time slowed, like an old romance movie, as they moved through the dwindling crowd that had turned into still gray shapes around them. When they came within a few paces of each other, Mary stopped, and hung back, while Chuck continued to carefully walk to her. Sarah's pace quickened, and she swiftly closed the gap, coming within an inch of him, but not touching, and they gazed into each other's eyes, searching them for some proof of reality.

Chuck's face broke into a sad sheepish smile, "Sarah," he coarsely rasped, "I'm so sor-"

"Shush," she whispered, showing surprise at the sound of his voice. Her hand slowly came up and touched his cheek, tracing his jaw, then settled on his chapped lips, stroking their roughness. It was like she was still trying to make sure he was real and her mind wasn't playing some vicious trick on her to help her cope with the desperation that had begun to overwhelm her.

Sensing her mood, Chuck's hand came up to hers, stroking her fingers. "It's me, Sarah, I'm real, you're not imagining it...and...I...I, I think I need a vacation."

Sarah snorted a laugh and burst into a beaming smile, even as tears began to stream down her cheeks. Then she suddenly, but carefully embraced him, her face buried in Chuck's chest under his chin. "I think I need a vacation too, Chuck, a looooong vacation," her muffled voice said into his chest.

"I love you, Sarah. I'm sorry I made you worry, made you think the worst."

Sarah rose up on her toes, planting a tender kiss on her husband's split lips, and ran her fingertips across his cheeks into his almost brittle feeling hair, resting her forehead on his. "I love _you_. We're done with this, Chuck. No more missions. From now on we run the business, and teach, and make babies. We'll let other people save the world."

"I'm all for that," he responded with a raspy chuckle. "But promise me you'll do one thing for me."

"What's that?" she asked, brushing her lips across his, once more.

"I know you said no more missions, but never, ever, ever, say 'one last mission' ever, again."

Sarah looked up at him, seeing the intense love, and something more, lurking in his troubled eyes, and she forced a smile, "It's a deal, honey. My lips are sealed."

"I'm sorry, kids, I hate to interrupt, but that horn means the train is getting ready to leave," Mary said, placing a hand on each of their arms.

"Then I think it's time we started our vacation, don't you, my red faced husband?"

"I do. Sarah Bartowski, will you run away on a vacation through Europe with me?"

"Why, yes, Charles Irving Bartowski, I thought you'd never ask."

- V -

"So that's how I got away after the Ring revived me. The place was in such complete chaos after you took down Shaw and the Elders, there was hardly any security left in the hospital wing they had me in. They even left me my Bronco with the keys still in it. Idiots."

"I wondered what happened to that...uh, car?"

"Truck. It has a truck chassis, so it's a truck," said Stephen, with a professorial tone.

"Okay," Chuck grinned, "Truck. I always liked that Bronco. You and your Fords. Ellie loves her old Mudstain."

"Them's fightin' words, son," Stephen Bartowski, snorted, grinning back at him.

Chuck looked over, turning his smile on Sarah, like a flashlight beam, as she sat next to him on the front porch of the Hungarian farmhouse; a house that could have easily been at home in almost any middle American setting. He had a blanket over his legs because he'd been fighting an intermittent case of the chills after his experience with the intense heat he'd been subjected to in the underground weapons bunker. His body was having trouble regulating his temperature, but Ellie had said it would improve over time, and it was already getting better after only a few days. She and Devon were arriving on tomorrow's train, after Ellie had spent the intervening time tending to her husband and Cole Barker. Both men were now ambulatory, and Ellie had sent them a cute picture of Nikki doting over Cole while he was in the hospital. It looked like they were quite struck with each other.

"Leave it to men to fight over a stupid car," Sarah quipped, sliding her hand under the blanket.

Chuck almost did a spit-take of his iced tea. "Excuse me? Says the lady who almost killed a teenager for leaning against her Porsche while it was parked in front of the Weinerlicious?"

Sarah returned a wry grin, "Hauling the little punk off by his ear does not constitute deadly force," she said, almost immediately regretting her choice of words from the look in her husband's eyes, "Besides, I got over all of that after it got blown up in front of our apartment. I've learned to let it go," she purred, her hand stroking his leg, in an effort to keep his mind in the moment.

Stephen smiled at the sight of his son, and Sarah, so obviously in love with him, trying to keep him grounded after such a traumatic event. He'd found a new respect for his daughter-in-law over the years of watching them from afar. "Some cars deserve our care and respect almost as much as our children," he said, the double meaning hanging in the air, "I'm glad that old Mustang is getting some TLC. Ellie used to love riding between your mom and me with the top down."

"Hmmm, yes," Mary replied, curling her arm around Stephen as they swayed in the porch swing. "Something about the feel and sound of that V8, and the wind, it made her sleep all night long."

"Food for thought," Chuck winked at his wife, "I wonder if a Porsche would have the same effect."

"I have a Lotus now, Mr. B," Sarah retorted, not even phased by her husband's other implication, "But it'll probably work just fine too."

"Oops. Right. Lotus. Forget you saw what the other hand was doing."

Sarah turned very deliberately to study him, and cocked an eyebrow, "What are you trying to say, Chuck?"

Chuck just gave her a tight lipped grin and zipped his lips with his fingers. Then he jumped when Sarah did something with her hand under the blanket, "Oh, that is so not fair as an interrogation technique."

"Tell me, Chuck. What have you gone and done now?"

"Guess you'll have to wait till we get back to the states to find out. But I suppose we could stop by the factory since your birthday is in a couple of weeks."

Sarah's face abruptly turned to an expression of abject shock.

"Hey, don't go and act all surprised," Chuck said defensively, grinning at her mischievously, "I can't help it if someone stuck your birth certificate in the Intersect, and I happened to flash on it during a fit of nostalgic desperation when I thought I might die."

Sarah shared a brief look of unwashed love with her husband at his admission of how she had been dominating his thoughts during that dire time, and then she slowly turned with a mock glare to Chuck's father.

"Hey, don't look at me," Stephen said, holding his hands up placatingly, "I wish I could take credit for that - if you haven't told him by now - but my spy instincts tell me you should talk to Ellie and your mother about it."

Sarah spread the exaggerated glare around. "A girl's most closely guarded secret is her true age. This is very troubling," she said quietly, looking at Chuck from the corner of her eye with a wry grin.

"Cradle robber...Owwww! Stop that!" Chuck exclaimed with a snerk, watching her stare at him with her mouth agape.

"If it makes you feel any better, Sarah, I'll share my age too," Mary said with a snicker.

"Huh. Yeah. Something tells me you could tell me you were younger than me and it would come off believable," Sarah mumbled.

"Oh, that had to leave a mark," Stephen said with a laugh.

Mary drew a very credible expression of injury on her face, and then smiled with a humorous huff, "I'm good, but I'm not that good. I can't lie my laugh lines away anymore," she smirked, drawing a laugh from the other three.

Chuck smiled when his wife rolled her eyes toward him, and then looked surreptitiously at him askance through her eyelashes. It wasn't really a disapproving look, but it wasn't endearing either. He also knew that expression wasn't directed at him. His mom had always looked at life like it was a chess game, even with her family, and he knew that irked Sarah to no end. His mother and Sarah had developed an oddly codependent relationship when Sarah had gone undercover to bring down the Volkoff organization and to rescue Mary. They had a lot of mutual professional respect for each other, and had forged an uneasy friendship, that was obvious. But they still had trust issues between them, because of some of the very questionable and dangerous things his mother had done in the name of protecting Chuck and Ellie, and possibly Mary's concern that Sarah would once again tread down a road she herself regretted ever traveling upon. Chuck had to admit, seeing his mother and father together like this, after all those years filled with so many difficult times, and such a long separation; it had been a huge shock to the system. He had never thought he'd see this day, but he knew that if his mom and dad could rise above all that, he and Sarah could face and defeat any obstacle in front of them too.

Listening to his father and mother's story about how they'd found each other and rebuilt what had been taken from them, it reminded him so much of what he'd gone through with Sarah. Then his parent's had joined forces with Ellie to help Sarah. It had been an amazing story, and a overwhelming gesture of dedication and love. He hoped with all his heart that one day Sarah and his mom would break down the remaining obstacles left between them, and forge something enduring from their mutual history and new sense of family. It wasn't going to be an easy road for any of them, but they were making progress, and the fact that Sarah and his mom could snark at each other and still laugh about it spoke volumes. And it was good to be in his parent's home, and spending time with them, even if it was hidden well off the grid in Hungary.

Chuck leaned over to the love of his life, resting his head on her shoulder as his arm wound around her and he began to stroke her hair. An easy mutual sigh passed both of their lips when Sarah rested her head against his, and he looked up when he heard his dad chuckle, seeing a delighted look on both his parent's faces.

"I don't think I've ever seen a more incredible sight, and I can't believe I was so blind to that, for so long," said Stephen Bartowski, with astonishment coloring his voice.

- VI -

Later that night, Sarah was awoken again by her husband. She'd been sleeping more lightly since the last mission, caught up in the uneasy aura that was emanating from Chuck since he'd narrowly escaped and returned to her on that train platform. He was shivering again, and his body felt like ice, but this time there was something more to it. Sarah huddled close to him rubbing her hands over him, and trying to bundle him up tighter in the blankets. He began to jerk and twist around like he was trying to run in the bed, and then started to mumble between gasping breaths. Then he went stiff as a board and shouted out incomprehensibly, followed by the very clear word 'no', dragged out in agony.

One of the things that had worried her was now happening. Sarah had been through this before herself, lived with frequent nightmares, which for some reason had almost completely gone away when she'd started sleeping with Chuck. She'd hoped her own presence in their bed would help prevent them from happening to him, but she could see now that was not going to be the case, at least not for a while. Sarah knew she had to wake him, and to attempt to get him to talk about it while the dream was still fresh in his memory. "Chuck." She gently shook him, "Come on, Chuck, honey, wake up. It's a bad dream Chuck, wake up."

His eyes shot open, but he wasn't looking at anything in the darkness here, he was somewhere else, as he gripped her arms tightly, cold sweat rolling off his brow, "Sarah...Sarah! Oh my...G-" He took a sudden shuddering breath, as he looked at her, but didn't see her.

"Take it easy, Chuck, it's okay. I'm here. I'm here, Chuck." Sarah gripped his hands tightly, and then pulling one of her's free, began stroking the side of his face as she gazed into his eyes. "Come on, sweetie, I'm right here. Look at me."

Presently, she saw his eyes focus on her, and her husband swallowed thickly, then choked when it didn't go down right. Sitting up, he coughed and sputtered, while Sarah rubbed his back. After a moment he clamped his eyes shut, squeezing tears from the corners of them, when the fit ended. "Sarah," he exhaled forcefully, "Oh, Sarah, I blew them up. I saw their faces when I did it, looked them right in the eye, then I blew them up!"

"Saw who, Chuck?" she looked at him a little confused, holding his face in her hands as their eyes connected, "Sweetheart, you made a very difficult decision, but you did what you had to do, to get the three of you out of there, to end it. Fulcrum is gone, Chuck. They'll never darken our doorstep again."

"No you don't understand," he said weakly, "I saw their eyes, saw the terror in them."

"Saw whose eyes, honey?" she said softly, "Talk to me, Chuck. Tell me what happened. Let me share your burden. I want to help." She could feel him shivering under a cold layer of sweat, and pushing him back down, molded herself into him, drawing the blankets up over them again. Then she tried to wait patiently for him.

"When we set all that C-4 to explode, I created a diversion, so we could get away," he finally said very quietly, "They had all these men searching for us, we were trapped. So I attached a puck explosive charge to a block of C-4. I was going to shake them up, make them go to ground for a while so we could slip out, maybe scare some of the less dedicated ones into leaving. I jumped across the corridor to throw the explosives into a room on the other side, there were bad guys all over the place, some right down the hall from me, and they saw me. When I opened the door to that room, there were four Fulcrum guys in there, all staring at me when I tossed that block of C-4 in...I could see it in their faces...the fear...of what they knew was going to happen. I can't get those faces out of my head, Sarah."

"You didn't know, Chuck." Sarah ran her fingers over his temples and through his hair, all the while gazing into his eyes, and holding that connection between them that she had missed so much when they were separated. "They were after you, and Devon, and Cole. You didn't have a choice...and those men probably never felt a thing."

She couldn't tell him they never knew what hit them, but what Chuck had done had ended it very quickly for those men. Sarah wondered if he would be as troubled about the men he'd shot to protect her, and Carina, and Zondra; or the men they'd killed together in what had apparently been one of the guards quarters. There would probably be more difficult moments for him; however, she suspected those experiences had been easier for Chuck because of the immediate threat to her. She concluded she needed to make him understand what had happened there was to protect Devon and Cole, too, that they would never have made it out if he hadn't done what he did. Sarah's biggest worry was what might happen to him when the full impact of the destruction of the base hit him; she wasn't sure if he'd completely processed that choice yet, but it seemed that he understood the result of the destruction he'd wielded, Chuck was mostly having troubles with the more personal elements of the things he'd done that day.

It'd been the same decision Diane Beckman had made when the first Fulcrum base had been destroyed by an air strike in Barstow. Chuck had made a command decision bearing tremendous responsibility, with a huge cost in life. He seemed to be holding up okay, and was calming down as he spoke, but Sarah wondered if he would be able to compartmentalize it, and realize what he did would have ultimately happened at either General Beckman's, or Captain Messner's order to do so anyway. Diane Beckman had been a little stunned to hear of the decision Chuck had made, and even somewhat humbled.

Looking at the veiled pain lurking deep in his eyes, Sarah could see that this wasn't over, that there would be more nights like this, and maybe a few troubling days as well. But she was resolved to her new mission to help him through it, and maybe help herself in the process, too. "Sweetheart, you and Cole saved Devon, you got the three of you out. We'll never have to worry about those people threatening us again. You did the right thing, Chuck, and you have to let it go."

"I'll be okay, Sarah," Chuck whispered, "Like you, I'll learn to live with it. I never wanted to have to do something like this, and I did everything I could to avoid it. The odds...they just caught up to me. I couldn't expect I'd be able to tilt them in my favor forever, and I couldn't let you do it, not again. But we'll get through this, together, like we always have...and I'm starting to ramble...again."

Sarah smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood. "Together. Remember that." She kissed him tenderly, and then ran her fingertips over his chapped, but healing lips. "Always together, Chuck, from now on. We'll help each other through this, and we'll be okay. I need it as much as you."

"I love you, Sarah Walker...always have."

"Chuck-" she started to mildly admonish, and halted, when he held her eyes locked with his and pulled her tight against him.

"Do you remember when I said that to you?"

"Yes," Sarah breathed. He'd said it exactly like he did that day. It was unmistakable. "You said it in Castle...after you rescued...Shaw."

Chuck nodded, cupping her cheek in his hand with a melancholy smile. "Then I need you to know when I say that, I mean I love all of you, from everything you were as a little girl, to Sarah Walker super spy extraordinaire, even the one through our most troubled times, and the woman I want raise my children with, and grow old with, out into the far flung future. You're everything to me, Sarah. Everything about you. The whole spicy nacho platter."

Sarah burst into a short, loud laugh, and clamped her hand over her mouth, before deciding Chuck's lips would make a more effective gag, and kissed him deeply, and fervently. "Make love to me, Chuck," she whispered, when they came up for air.

Chuck's eyebrows shot up, "Sarah, my folks are right next door," he intoned, pointing at the wall over their heads.

"Quietly."

Chuck began to shake from a silent laugh.

"I promise, I'll try," she giggled, kissing him on the neck as she let her hands wander.

"Okay," Chuck croaked helplessly, drawing the word out under the onslaught of his wife's skillful lips and touch. "How can I refuse when you put it that way."

- VII -

Four days later, after some very important quality time spent family bonding with Ellie, Devon, and their reunited parents, Chuck and Sarah boarded a train for...nowhere in particular. They'd reserved a private sleeper berth on a touring train without any plans to get off, except to take in the sights at their whim. Their loose plans revolved around visiting most of the countries in Europe, but for the last two and a half days they'd only seen the inside of their private berth.

It had been like a replay of their train trip from Paris to Zurich, and it had been everything the dream had once showed Sarah, and so much more. Over two days of almost constant love making, interspersed with room service meals and moments of lounging around naked, watching Europe roll by out the window; and watching, and touching each other like teenagers. There had hardly been a moment when they weren't in intimate contact, drawn to each other like magnets.

The one thing that had been different so far was that neither of them had flashed, and thus been tempted by their sense of duty, one amplified by their shared gift, and curse. As they lay in the bed with a bowl of fresh strawberries resting on Chuck's bare chest, sipping champagne, Chuck thought to himself, _this must be what it's like to be a comic book character_. He strenuously resisted using the term super-hero. It was the last place he wanted to go, in his mind or anywhere else. But he was constantly aware - and he knew Sarah was, too - that at any moment circumstances could throw them back into the fray, maybe to do something dangerous again, take risks that they really didn't want to take. That was the curse born from the awesome responsibility of possessing the Intersect.

And even though they'd had a perfectly good reason to be holed up here, consumed by each other's love and desire, and a need to shut out the world, to devote themselves to each other even as they traveled across it, Chuck wondered if they might be a little afraid to step out into that world. Because the Intersect just couldn't be shut off. It would always be telling them things as they interacted with people and the environment around them, and he knew they were both concerned it might make them break a promise, utter those words that Chuck asked Sarah never to say again - one last mission.

"What are you thinking about Chuck?" Sarah asked, taking a strawberry from the bowl and placing it halfway in her mouth, grinning around it.

He smiled at her and leaned over to bite the berry in half under a kiss, then looked at her intently as they chewed the fruit. "That's a rhetorical question, right?"

She smiled back a little sheepishly and shrugged, causing her breasts to bounce in a way that made her giggle at Chuck's wide-eyed reaction. She hoped he would never lose that sweet teenage innocence and attraction to her, the same one she felt every time he gave her an opportunity to admire his charms. "You know, eventually we're going to have to leave this room. We can't let this thing in our heads make us paranoid and turn us into something like Elvis or Howard Hughes. We're going to have to find some sort of balance while living with it."

"Do you think the 'no more missions' rule is unrealistic?" he asked, finally voicing a conversation they'd already had multiple times without saying a word.

"No, I don't. We only have to find a way to make sure the risky things get handed off to someone else that wants to take them on." They both already knew the answers to these questions; they were already being addressed. New Intersect operatives like Nikki and Cole, and a list of other younger candidates would soon pick up the mantle of the riskier responsibility, and allow Chuck and Sarah to be their trainers and case officers. "I want a family," said Sarah restlessly, "We can't continue this the way we have and raise kids. I don't want to orphan my children, and I never want to experience again, what I went through when I thought I'd lost you," she added softly, looking away, her lip quivering almost imperceptibly.

"Hey, come here," Chuck said, setting the bowl of fruit aside and taking her up tightly in his arms. "I will never put you through that again, babe. From now on, if it ever gets that dicey for us, we'll face it together. Of course, if given a choice I'd rather not _ever_ be put in that position again."

"Our track record with this sort of thing isn't very good, Chuck," Sarah murmured into his neck. She pushed back a bit and gave him a watery smile, running her fingers through his lengthening curly locks. "I wish the evil doers would just give us a break."

Chuck grinned at her. "I do, too," he said, with a short chuckle punctuated by a gentle kiss. "In the meantime, let's go face the world, and ignore the evil doers for a few more weeks." He grinned at her devilishly, "If we happen to stumble onto a really nasty villain, we'll just call Auntie Becky and let her take care of him...or her. It seems to be an equal opportunity world for evil doers these days."

Sarah snorted a laugh, "It's been that kind of world for a while now, Chuck," she said, giving him a peck. She bounded gracefully from the bed and pulled her husband to his feet. "C'mon, let's give the steward a break and get some dinner in the dining car. If we run into any Basque terrorists this time we'll call Interpol and let them handle it."

- VIII -

As it turned out, Chuck and Sarah had to call Diane Beckman and the Carmichael Industries office several times during the almost eleven weeks they spent traveling around Europe. At one point they even spent an afternoon in the Berlin CIA substation, briefing the Chief and his staff about a group of Chechen terrorists they had flashed upon, who were attempting to smuggle weapons grade Plutonium across the border. It had taken every ounce of their willpower to stay out of that one; the people involved being very dangerous and nasty individuals indeed.

It had proved to be dicey just doing the briefing, because the station Chief kept asking questions about how both Chuck and Sarah could know so much about all the highly compartmentalized information contained therein, and had started to get belligerent in his quest for information he wasn't cleared to see. He'd been a loud mouth, and even threatened to put them in lockup, a threat which almost got him severely injured by Sarah before Chuck intervened and defused the situation with his typical rambling and confusing nerdspeak. It had finally required a surreptitious call to General Beckman to have her lay down the law to the overly curious CIA administrator. He'd come out of the conference call with Diane and the National Security Adviser with a pale green pallor, and silent.

Despite the occasional brush with the Intersect, Chuck and Sarah took it all in stride, and had a wonderful extended vacation on the continent. But they knew that it had to end at some point. Their lives were simply too important for them to fall off the grid forever, and eventually they found themselves in the United Kingdom, where they were given a personal tour for several days by Cole Barker.

The MI6 agent had had a lot of questions for them about Nikki Lawson. In typical agent fashion he'd approached it carefully, like an operation, as he casually pumped Chuck and Sarah for information about the woman he was thinking about asking to be his partner. Chuck and Sarah took turns teasing him about it, feeding him all sorts of humorous half-truths, and a few very scary facts about just what the SIS man could be getting himself into if he pursued his current course of action. It had become obvious to both Chuck and Sarah that Cole's interest went beyond the professional where Nikki was concerned.

They exchanged knowing looks at each other as Cole drove them through the Scottish countryside on their way to meet their jet that would whisk them back to the states. Cole would be making the trip with them to join the project if he followed through.

"So, Cole, are you really sure you're up for this? You're completely sure this is what you want to do?" asked Chuck, following the protocol they'd set up for Intersect candidates to the letter, making sure he had every opportunity to back out of the life changing decision he was about to make. Because as yet, they had not found a way to completely suppress the Iv4 program once it was downloaded, and the process at this point couldn't be reversed.

"Oh, I'm not changing my decision Chuck. I made my mind up about that long before our mission in the Czech Republic. Besides, I've seen the two of you in action, and I'm much too curious about it now to think about backing out. Plus, the attractions far outweigh any misgivings I may have." Cole looked at Chuck and Sarah in turn, passing an, oh so, British wry grin to each of them. "I've also heard some rumors that are somewhat hard to ignore...and I saw it firsthand."

"Oh, yeah?" Sarah said, grinning at him, "And what, pray tell, would those have been?"

"Something about a symbiotic connection between Intersects," Cole said speculatively, glancing at them. "Wasn't sure if I believed it at first, but it seemed very obvious on that mission, and I've seen it several times the last few days, the way you and Chuck talk, without saying anything."

"Have you talked to Nikki about this? Asked her about us?" said Sarah, looking at her husband while biting the lower lip of her smile, and squeezing his knee with her fingertips.

"Oh, yes, we've talked, about a great many things. However, I could never pin her down on any details. She kept saying it was a matter of decorum, and privacy. And something about continuing to be welcome in your home."

"Well, that's comforting," Chuck deadpanned with a roll of his eyes. He gazed at Sarah, returning her playful pinching with his hand on her knee, and she continued to bite her lip even as the corners of her mouth continued up, with that glint in her eye, and they both squirmed in the seat under one another's tickling grip. "Just so you go into this with a complete understanding of what you may be getting into, tell Nikki she has our permission to say more...within reason. That way you'll be fully informed about the 'attractions' you mentioned," he added, with a devil-may-care tone that elicited a suppressed giggle from Sarah.

Cole looked back and forth between them with a raised eyebrow, clearly fighting a flush, "Blimey, you two are beginning to scare me."

"Oh, good," laughed Sarah, "that was the idea. Just want to make sure you're okay with your partner being able to access _all_ of your thoughts."

"This Intersect stuff is dangerous business, Cole, much more than meets the eye," said Chuck melodramatically. "Nikki is going to have the inside track on everything you are thinking..._everything_."

Agent Barker's eyes stayed glued to the road when his companions behind him kissed, and they rode in silence for a few minutes. "I can hear him thinking, Chuck," Sarah said teasingly.

Cole shot her an incredulous look as he turned the Land Rover onto the remote airport ramp surrounded by the green hills of the Scottish highlands.

"Don't worry, she can only really do that if she's touching you," quipped Chuck.

The British agent shook his head, clearly biting his tongue, when they pulled up next to the Gulfstream G-IV with the Carmichael Industries logo on the tail, parked alone on the ramp.

"Heh, Cole Barker, speechless. That's a first," Chuck chirped, sharing another playful smile with Sarah.

Those smiles spread huge across Chuck and Sarah's faces when the air stairs lowered, and they watched as Nikki Lawson came down the steps with John Casey close behind her.

"Oh, this is just beautiful," Sarah exclaimed with a devious snicker, rubbing her palms together "Both Nikki _and_ Casey. We are going to have _so_ much fun on this trip, Chuck!"

Chuck leaned over and gave Sarah - his smart, beautiful, passionate, deadly, and suddenly _very_ hormonal wife, and the love of his life - a playful kiss, passing a message to her through their smiling lips that caused her to positively glow at him. "From now on Sarah Bartowski, _fun_ is going to be our biggest mission in life."

* * *

**A/N - **It's not the end. Yes, there will be an epilogue and some attributions coming up. Stay tuned.

Mac


	16. Epilogue

**A/N 5/28/13 – **If you're still reading this, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me, and with Chuck and Sarah, as we took this story off that fateful beach. I've **NEVER **been involved in a television fandom like I have with **CHUCK, **and I sometimes wonder if I ever will again - it's a double-edged blade.

In fact, I'm really not a big television kind of guy. That's how compelling this story has been to me. Chuck has inspired me to reach into myself and put my ideas on the page in a startling way, and finishing this tale has been truly cathartic. This story would fill a 375 page paperback book. Wow. I **never** thought I would do something like this...but I've always wanted to. :)

And now it has me working on original fiction! Thank you Chuck Bartowski! You're Ace's!

This epilogue and the last two acts were largely unbeta'd, so any errors or shortcomings in delivery are mine alone, except some proof reading and approval by Mrs. MacNab, which I appreciate very much. Thank you, sweetie.

* * *

**Chuck Versus the Lost Years**

**Epilogue**

Sarah finished the after action report she'd been neglecting all these weeks for their assistance with the terrorists in Berlin, and pushed her chair back from her desk. Report writing had been low on her list of priorities while she and Chuck were touring Europe, at the very bottom. Her eyes traveled around her spacious Carmichael Industries office, taking in the new pictures on the walls and atop the credenza beside her, stopping to linger on several framed photos of their time in Europe, arranged along with several wedding pictures. She sighed dreamily at the sight of them, taken away momentarily to other times and places. Her own personal touches now showed everywhere in this space, but she'd left Chuck's original decor largely the same because of the way it reminded her of the fact they were in this together, and and the way it made their two connecting offices match as well as they did.

It was quiet here today. Being that it was the fourth of July, almost all of the staff were gone, some of them at their house helping to set things up for the big Independence Day party they were throwing. Casey was, of course, grilling several stuffed beef tenderloins for dinner, and Morgan, well, he'd already gotten himself into trouble with Sarah earlier, when he'd come traipsing through the offices carrying several large bags filled with illegal Chinese fireworks. Now only Sally Williams remained behind, to mind the Agency intelligence feeds from her workstation in the cyberwar room, and to help Sarah with some last minute details for the party. But she too would be leaving here in a little while to celebrate the fourth with Chuck and Sarah, along with the large group of family and friends soon to be congregating at that house with the red door, and they'd then lock the offices up and leave the skeleton staff in the first floor CIA substation to mind the store.

The party today would be for more than just the U.S.'s independence. They were also celebrating their own; their new independence and retirement from the life of field operatives. She and Chuck were setting that life behind them, and they had decided the party today would be for those reasons as well. Sarah had no illusions that they were out completely. She knew they'd still be traveling the world doing espionage work, but they were now leaving the grittier tasks to a new team of Intersect operatives that had volunteered to be put on the tip of the spear. They would be leading this team, spearheaded by Nikki and Cole, so she had no doubts that sometimes she and Chuck would be along on some assignments in a leadership and support role, and to complete a Bridge rubber, since Cole had recently gotten them all addicted to the card game. But the Bartowskis were done putting their own butts on the line, they had bigger responsibilities now.

She felt her stomach do a little flip causing a slightly irritated smirk to appear on her face, and rose to walk over to her wet bar, where she dropped some ice cubes into a tumbler and poured something the color of amber into it. Sarah took a sip and stared into her drink for a moment with a satisfied smile, watching the bubbles teaming around the ice cubes from the bottom of the glass. Then she walked through the arched portal into Chuck's office and quietly approached him from behind.

He was sitting at his desk, transfixed by several small black and white images spread across his monitor. Chuck jumped when she placed her hand on his shoulder, and ran her fingertips through the hair on the back of his head. He twisted quickly in his chair, and looked up at her attempting to conceal his surprise, "Oh, hey, my sneaky ninja wife, still sharp as ever, I see." He looked at the glass in her hand and a corner of his mouth turned down a little in a sympathetic frown, "Is the Ginger Ale helping any?"

Sarah took another sip and set the glass on his desk, before spinning her nerd's chair around, and sitting in his lap. She wound her arms around his neck, and tilted her head into her raised shoulder. "It's helping some," she said, laying a gentle kiss on his lips. "I really don't have it that bad, and it seems to be going away. Whatcha doin'?" she asked, looking at him inquisitively.

"Sending an email to Mom and Dad, since they couldn't," he rolled his eyes, "or _wouldn't,_ come to the states for the party. Dad can be so damn paranoid sometimes."

Sarah patted his cheek, "C'mon, can you blame him that much after what he and your mom have been through? Besides, you know the players involved in this game. You sent them the sonograms?"

Chuck's lips turned up into that lopsided smile Sarah adored so much, "Yeah. We got a message back titled, 'Ace's Charles & Sarah'," he chuckled, "They say congrats. And, yeah, _we_ know all the players entirely too well. Speaking of which, is Auntie Beckman still coming?"

"Uh, huh. With the usual security detail. I told her to make sure they all dressed for a barbecue. No black suits."

"Well, that should be interesting, hulking NSA bodyguards in flip-flops and Hawaiian shirts."

"Haha, yeah, there's an image. She's bringing Roan."

"Hiyo. Yes, this is definitely going to be _very_ interesting," he grinned, "The seduction meister and the General, together, at our backyard barbecue. Can you imagine the look on their faces when we make the announcement?"

"MmmHmmm." Sarah smiled mischievously at him. "Speaking of seduction...you do remember I was at the top of my class..." Sarah tilted her head to the other side, dropping her chin a bit, and gave him that clearly unmistakable look through her eyelashes, before she locked her lips on his for a deep, lingering, and passionate kiss.

"Hiyo," Chuck intoned, dragging the word out, with a creaking whimper when their lips parted, "Did you get a sheepskin for that?"

Sarah responded with a short giggle, and stroked his cheek with her fingertips, running them down from his jaw to his chest. When her eyes fell on the ultrasound images displayed on Chuck's monitor, she sighed blissfully. "You do know how much I love you, right? I know I don't say it enough."

Smiling at her with an adoration that made her heart do a flip, Chuck spread his hand across her belly, and made slow soothing circles with it that elicited a sound from Sarah that sounded almost like a purr. "You say it plenty," he said with affection, "but if you think you need to say it more, I'm always willing to listen."

"I love you, Chuck Bartowski...always have. I don't know why it's so hard for me to say."

"Because you're a woman of action, Sarah Bartowski; and baby, you have a way of showing it to me that speaks so much louder than words, and the proof is right here," he said, poking her playfully in her belly button with his finger, and giving her the eyebrow dance.

"Awww, Chuck," she said, running her hand through his hair, "you know your way into my heart so well. Can I show you just how much I love you, again?"

Sarah's smile grew when he looked at her almost trepidatiously, like he was afraid she might eat him like a predator. "That depends on what you have in mind," he said a little nervously, "We're hosts today, we have obligations, and we need to get home in just a little while, there are a lot of guests coming over, you know, very important guests, and family, and frie-"

"Chuck?" she pointedly interrupted, stopping his rambling in its tracks.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and kiss me."

Chuck grinned at his wife, more of a borderline smirk, knowing he was playing with fire again in her hormonally challenged state, and leaned forward, kissing her through a smile. She responded in kind for a few seconds, and then, taking firm control of him by his hair, turned it into a toe-curling open mouthed kiss that set him off like a fourth of July skyrocket.

Then the love of his life, his wife, super-agent, and the bearer of his child, Sarah Walker, trailed her lips from his ear, and slowly down his neck, in a wandering line of softly sucking kisses, where her fingertips had played only a moment before. "Chuck?" she asked again, between nips, knowing she had him right where she wanted him.

"Yeah?" he croaked, with a ragged breath.

"I think it's time we finally broke in this desk," Sarah said impishly, with a wicked grin.

"Oh?" He ran his finger around the inside of the collar of his Stanford t-shirt and gulped, "I think I may be up for that."

"Oh, you're up for it alright," she whispered in his ear, and then stood, running her hand over the bulge in his pants. "Don't move," she said, wagging her finger at him, before she sauntered to his office door with a pronounced sway of her hips.

Sarah stood in the doorway with her hands on each door handle and, catching Sally William's eye as the young woman sat at her workstation, gave her a very exaggerated wink and a nod, while a beaming smile appeared on her face.

Sallie's eyes went wide, and she grinned back, clearing her throat loudly while looking dramatically at her watch. "Oh, my goodness, look at the time! If it's okay with you Mrs. Bartowski, I think I'll go get ready for the party, I'm running late," she said, stifling a snicker as she reached for her purse.

"That's fine Sally, we'll see you there...and don't be surprised if we're stylishly late," Sarah said, with a twinkle in her eye, closing the big double doors.

**THE END**

* * *

**...or is it? **

**A/N – **I want to thank you, all of my readers, some of you new friends, who have followed along on this journey that I took with Mrs. Chuck Bartowski and Mr. Sarah Walker. I do hope very much that this story helped heal any wounds that may have been inflicted on your shipper's heart by the last few episodes and the series finale of Chuck; and if you liked the finale just fine, I hope you still had fun with where I took them from the beach. It was a lot of fun to write...a lot of work, but a good time, nonetheless. ;) This was my first fiction story in a long, long time. And it probably shows, lol. I'll keep trying to get better at this, so they won't hurt quite as much to read in the future.

Now for some things that simply must be said.

**somedeepmystery**, what can I say? You've become a dear friend and a confidant in this rediscovered world of fiction writing I've been away from for so long. You've been an amazing force for me. I can feel you standing behind me when I sit down in front of a keyboard, urging me along. I know that sounds incredibly schmaltzy, but it's true! Thank you for helping me grow as a writer, and for being my friend. I cherish every word we share when we discuss the craft, kick around in the Chuck 'verse, and other fandoms, and almost everywhere else in our lives. Don't worry, I'm not letting it any of this go to my head, I know I still have a very long way to go on this journey. And though we haven't 'seen' much of each other lately, I hope we can still continue to share the journey together.

**uplink2 - **You stuck your neck out and became my first beta reader. I'm indebted to you, and I appreciate all the discussions we've had along the way about these characters we both adore (especially that dangerous blond woman), and what it takes to stay true to their individual characters and their story. I know we'll continue play with this as we go forward. Thanks.

**SteampunkChuckster** and **BDaddyDl** ** – **Thank you so much for letting me step into your kitchens every now and then, to throw the spaghetti against the wall, and to see if it will stick. And thank you, also, for putting up with my constant ramblings about these fun characters we love to play with in our spare time. I sincerely hope we can continue to collaborate on our story telling going forward. You've both become good friends across the ether, and I value that friendship very highly.

**resaw**, **Sudden Radiance**, **grandetiopaco**, **Hotski**, **Marc Vun Kannon**, **tw200**, **esardi**, **CaptMediocre1,** **MRG101**, **justhear4thestories**, and **Dan Schultz** - and I suspect a host of others, but sometimes the names are different across platforms, and I don't ask when I should – I've had a lot of fun chumming around with all of you on PM's, Twitter, and Tumblr. Thank you for all the reviews and notes that helped to stoke the fire necessary to keep something like this going. You've all been so important to me, simple words don't seem to cut it.

**phnxgrl – **Wow. Someone needs to say something. You post a review for everyone on this fandom...almost every story and chapter. You are such a dedicated Chuck fan, and I **LOVE** you. :D Big, big hat tip to you, girl. Keep going. You are so great.

Lastly, something for the all the folks who do the **Chuck This** blog, and everyone who stops by there to pitch their pennies up against the wall on a daily basis, even after over a year beyond the end of the Chuck series. Your opinions and analysis have been very valuable when it comes to researching and understanding this story, and every character within it. I know I don't post many comments, and I feel out of my depth when I try (I'll primarily stick to the story telling), but I lurk a lot, and read almost everything. I sincerely hope this story doesn't end soon, and we can continue to talk about it, and keep it alive for a very long time. It's simply that good...and we need a movie!

And, as usual, you can find news about what's going on in my little corner of the fanfic world by visiting my profile page. You'll also find links to my Twitter, Tumblr, and Sarah Versus the Farm pages there. Join me. I sincerely want to have a dialogue with you. Friendship is good!

See you, Chucksters! I still have stories in the works for those of you interested in reading them. Stop by the Farm anytime. The door is always open.

Mac


End file.
